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THE 

MOSS MYSTERY 


BY 

CAROLYN WELLS 


U 



GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 


GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC. 
1924 


©Cl A 7 78668 

COPYRIGHT, I924, BY 
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY STREET & SMITH CORPORATION 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES 
AT 

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. 

First Edition 





CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Insidious Marybelle . . ". . i 

II. Murder or Suicide.18 

III. The Moonstone Ring.41 

IV. The Coroner.52 

V. A Blind Alley. ....... 65 

VI. Six Sides to a Room. 76 

VII. The Missing Necklace ..... 84 

VIII. Footsteps in the Night .... 95 

IX. Trailed! ......... 105 









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THE MOSS MYSTERY 

CHAPTER I 

INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 

Different men are of different opinions, 

Some like apples, some like inions. 

T HAT, I hold, is incontrovertible philoso¬ 
phy. How much truer it is, than, for in¬ 
stance, Emerson’s dazzling generality, “All 
the world loves a lover.” 

But then, what generality is true? Yet, far 
truer than the latter epigram is this simple 
statement: All the world loves a mystery. 
And on this rock I build my tale. 

I am a living man, and he is a Fictional 
Detective, but that is the only way in which 
I radically differ from Sherlock Holmes. 
We are both wonderful detectives, and I know 
of no other in our class. We can pluck out 
,the heart of a mystery, unerringly, and with 
the least possible waste motion. I say this 
-for myself without vanity or conceit. I have 
<10 patience with the modesty that deprecates 
skilled achievement. Even Holmes’s “Ele¬ 
mentary, really, my dear Watson,” is distaste¬ 
ful to me. But the poor man couldn’t help 


2 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

it. His author wrote it about him. Now, I 
rate my work at its true value, and never un¬ 
derestimate it. Elementary, indeed! As 
well call the architecture of the Parthenon 
elementary. 

A detective is merely a man who discerns 
the true and the relevant from a mass of false 
and unimportant evidence. That is all. 

And I always do it. My confidence is 
founded on never failing experience in the 
past and no fear of failure in the future. It 
has always been so. As a child, picture puz¬ 
zles flew together under my fingers, and little 
fiddly steel-ring puzzles fell apart in my 
hands. Charades, riddles, abstruse mathe¬ 
matical problems or tricky fallacies presented 
to me no difficulties of solution; and now I 
trust you realize my status as a detective. 

My name is Owen Prall, and though that 
doesn’t sound like a detective’s name at first, 
it does, the more you come to think of it. My 
personal appearance is a little better than av¬ 
erage, and though I am not handsome, I like 
to think I have an air of distinguishment; but 
this varies, after a chameleonic fashion, with 
my surroundings. I have a thick mane of 
hair about the color of apple-sauce. This 
proves the theory, a true one, that abundance 
of hair denotes unusual intuitive powers. 

Now, as every man has his own pet unful- 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 3 

jjfilled desire, as some dream of perpetual mo* 
||tion and others of a way to make an omelette 
^without breaking eggs, so I have always 
longed with the keenest intensity for a cer¬ 
tain kind of a case. 

To me, cases are cases. While my heart is 
shocked and sorrowed by a murder, my brain 
becomes at once awake, with its loins girt and 
stall in hand, ready for the trail that shall lead 
straight, or, at least surely, to the criminal. 

Yet, though I have tracked criminals by all 
the hackneyed clues of broken cufflinks, ini¬ 
tialed revolvers, footprints and fingerprints, 
never, until the Great Moss Mystery, did I 
have the case I wanted, the conditions I had 
longed for for years; namely: a murder com¬ 
mitted in an absolutely inaccessible room. I 
have read stories based on this plot, but the 
solution has always been so unsatisfactory—a 
secret panel or an implausible contrivance of 
some sort—that my clue-finding fingers fairly 
itched to tackle a problem like that in real life 
—and real death. 

You must remember, as I said, to me a case 
is a case, not a human document, though the 
motive was human enough, God knows, for 
the Moss murder. And the room was cer¬ 
tainly inaccessible to a mortal human being. v 

I went to Woodshurst on the invitation of 
its mistress, Marybelle Moss, a widow, whom 


4 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

I had known something less than a year. She 
was a cousin of Frank Wesley’s wife, and 
Frank was an old friend of mine, and I liked 
his wife, and I more than liked the widowed 
Marybelle. 

No, I wasn’t a bit in love with her. On the 
contrary, I was not sure I liked her. But she 
fascinated me. Marybelle--—And by the 
way, what a funny thing it is, the use of Chris¬ 
tian names. Some people you always pick up 
by their prefix; and then some, though these 
are rare, you want to call by their first names 
the moment you meet them. Marybelle was 
this sort, and it may have been partly due to 
the pretty name combination. The two names 
were never spoken separately and it made her 
sound like some sort of strange new flower. 
But she wasn’t specially like a flower, unless 
an orchid, nor was she of a new or strange 
type. Rather, the oldest type of all femin¬ 
inity, older even than Mother Eve. 

She was, for I may as well describe her 
here, a siren; she was almost, but not quite, a 
vampire. Of exquisite manner, of desperate 
charm and of a luring, haunting fascination 
that could only have been excelled in the tem¬ 
perament of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. 

Marybelle possessed a very white face, 
quantities of very auburn hair, gold-glinted, 
and eyes that are called by such meaningless 


INSIDIOUS MARYBBLLE 5 

names as beryl or hazel. Witch hazel would 
be better. And now you know all about 
Marybelle, except her wonderful hands— 
delicate, inviting hands, that seemed to beck¬ 
on, even though they lay still. 

She had been a widow for about a year and 
a half, long enough, as widows go now, and 
the house party for which I was bound, was, I 
surmised, of the nature of an announcement 
party. For Marybelle, so Wesley’s wife had 
told me, ( had wiled her way into the heart of 
no less a catch than a Belted Earl (I assume 
the belt) and it was rumored that a second 
marriage venture would make Mrs. Moss a 
Countess. 

I had only met her in town, and this was my 
first visit to her home at Barrowsville, a small 
village within easy motoring distance of New 
York. The place, I thought, was rather os¬ 
tentatiously titled Woodshurst, for it was 
merely a big frame house of the architecture 
of the early seventies, one of the worst peri¬ 
ods America boasts. Square, even cubic, with 
another smaller cube on top for a cupola. A 
large rear “extension,” and recently added 
porte-cochere and sun parlor relieved the cu- 
bicity but added to the ungracefulness. 

And yet, the charm of the hostess permeated 
the whole place, and I felt, the moment I en¬ 
tered the hall, the lure of Marybelle. The 


(y THE MOSS MYSTERY 

! 

very blaze of the fires, the flicker of the can¬ 
dles and the scent of the massed flowers, with 
here and there a burning pastille, all assailed 
my senses as with the wiles of an enchantress, 
quite obliterating any impressions that might 
have been made by the blatant pomposity of 
the black walnut doors and heavy plaster cor¬ 
nices. 

Everything was more or less remodeled. 
Hardwood floors replaced the pine boards, 
and electric fixtures had been attached to the 
great gas chandeliers, so that the effects were 
as anomalous inside as out. But all was 
blended and harmonized by the magic of the 
mistress, and I went to my room, on the third 
floor, conscious of a distinctly pleasant feel¬ 
ing of anticipation. 

1 I did not see Marybelle until the dinner 
hour, and then the sudden flash of welcome in 
her eyes, the greeting smile on her scarlet, 
sensitive lips and the touch of her warm, vital 
hands thrilled me as no woman ever had be¬ 
fore. No, I insist it was only interest and— 
( well, curiosity. I wanted to study her, for I 
,had never before met just such a woman. 

I “Mr. Prall,” she cried, gaily, “how darling 
of you to come! I was so afraid you wouldn’t, 
and I simply had to have you. How do you 
want to be entertained? By a debutante’s 
chatter, or some man-talk? There’s a tiny 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 7 

bit of time before dinner. Oh, here’s a man 
II want you to meet, Geoffrey, Earl Herring- 
dean, Mr. Prall.” 

I liked his lordship at once. When an 
English nobleman is a good sort, he’s an aw¬ 
fully good sort, and Herringdean was one, it 
seemed to me. 

The debutante was Cissy Carreau, a very 
young and very Frenchy bit of slenderness, 
who sat next me at dinner. She proved to be 
little more than a giggling schoolgirl, and I 
turned to the lady at my left. She was Miss 
Field, Marybelle’s companion, and she 
showed just the right combination of vivacity 
and repression that a companion ought to ex¬ 
hibit. Apparently she was used to it, for the 
role fitted her and required no effort. Mrs. 
Wesley and Marybelle were the only other 
women and the men were Herringdean, Wes¬ 
ley, Bellamy and myself. 

“Rock” Bellamy, I never knew whether his 
name was Rockwell or Rockingham or what, 
was the village cut-up. I don’t suppose they 
called him that, but it tickets him sufficiently 
for the moment. 

j The dinner hour was merry, really gay. 
Being only eight of us, the conversation was 
general and everybody did his best to enter¬ 
tain and be entertained. Both are exertions 
for me, as I like best to study people without 


8 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

bothering to talk or be talked to. And here 
was an interesting bunch to study. From 
Marybelle, always predominant, down to lit¬ 
tle Cissy, piping out her absurd opinions, they 
were all worthwhile bits of human nature. 

The Earl, though quite evidently unaccus¬ 
tomed to American vivacity, was adaptable, 
,and in his big, good-humored way appreci¬ 
ated the quick-fire, up-to-date repartee. And 
this was fortunate, for after his engagement 
to Marybelle was announced he was subjected 
to raillery and jocund toasts that were not al¬ 
ways in accordance with his English point of 
view. But he laughed with the rest and re¬ 
sponded easily and appropriately, if not in 
kind. 

After dinner there was bridge. Only four 
of us played, however, as the newly betrothed 
pair felt privileged to wander off by them¬ 
selves, and Frank Wesley wanted to smoke. 
Miss Field effaced herself, so Cissy Carreau 
and I played against Helen Wesley and Bel¬ 
lamy. 

Yes, I am getting to the story, but the bridge 
game is of a certain importance, as showing 
how the veriest trifles blaze trails to great 
possibilities. Well, I don’t care if that is a 
little mixed as to metaphor, it’s true. And 
you have to give all the necessary data in the 
body of a mystery story. It isn’t fair to 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 9 

spring a surprise at the end that couldn’t pos¬ 
sibly have been foreseen by the astute reader. 
And, too, I’m telling this Moss Mystery story 
just as it happened. And though it hadn’t 
begun to happen at the time we played Bridge, 
yet what occurred at the card table had, I 
think, a great bearing on the theories of solu¬ 
tion, at least in the minds of many of us. 

It seems Cissy Carreau was psychic. That 
means that somebody who wanted to hold her 
hand had told her she had a psychic hand, 
and that sort of twaddle. But she took it 
seriously and had dipped into the matters of 
table-tipping and spirit-rapping more than I 
should have advised for any eighteen-year-old 
girl, if I’d had any say on the subject. But 
Cissy’s people thought it cunning and so she 
went to seances and such things at will. And 
lately—she told us about this while I was deal¬ 
ing, and I held a card motionless above my 
own pile till she finished—she had been 
studying up on Poltergeist. 

“What’s that, for _ gracious sake?” asked 
Helen Wesley. 

s “I know,” volunteered Rock. “The ghosts 
throw things around the room and drag you 
out of bed-” 

“Yes,” said Cissy, her eyes shining with a 
deep tensity, “and they stick pins in you. Oh, 
hundreds of them! And they roll up your 


IO THE MOSS MYSTERY 

clothes in bundles and set fire to them! It’s' 
perfectly wonderful!” 

“You believe in these things, Miss Car- 
reau?” said I, in a tone just sufficiently skepti¬ 
cal to lead her on. 

“Oh, yes, I know all about them.” And 
she gave my ignorance a pitying smile. “Why 
I’ve read of the world renowned cases. Mary 
Jobson, you know, she heard raps and knocks 
all the time, and wonderful music, and things; 
and the Amherst mystery, Esther Cox, she was 
marvelous! Why, the control—that’s what 
they call the Polter ghost—used to throw 
lighted matches at her and milk pitchers, and 
oh, it’s frightfully interesting! I’m wild over 
it! Think of sitting all alone in a room and 
have a milk pitcher fly at your head— Oh!” 

The exclamation was caused by the fact 
that the little pile of cards I had dealt to 
Cissy, just then flew up and hit her in the face. 

There was no apparent human agency in 
the matter, they rose in a heap, struck her 
dainty little turned-up nose and fell back to 
the table, where they lay quiet. 
p “Who did that?” cried Helen Wesley, 
sharply. But no one replied, each looking a 
little foolishly at the cards. 

“It’s Poltergeist!” exclaimed Cissy in an 
awe-struck but by no means frightened tone.; 
“I wish they’d do it again.” 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE n 

And again the pile of cards flew up at her, 
but this time they mostly fell to the floor. 

“Have to have a new deal,” said Rock Bel¬ 
lamy, as several of the cards lay faced on the 
floor. 

“Oh,” cried Cissy, “how can you think of 
dealing when we may be on the verge of some 
marvelous revelation! I’m psychic, you 
know; perhaps we can get into communica¬ 
tion with the--” 

“Don’t!” whispered Helen Wesley. “I— 
I hate that sort of thing! I—I’m afraid-” 

“Nonsense!” broke in Bellamy. “There’s 
nothing to be afraid of, Mrs. Wesley; but 
there’s nothing in it, either. The draft must 
have done that.” 

“Draft!” I exclaimed. “Fling those cards 
about like that! Fiddlesticks!” 

But Rock gathered up the cards and gave 
them to me and I dealt over again. I had al¬ 
most reached the last card, when again the 
pile in front of Cissy flew up and darted 
through the air, landing finally in far corners 
of the room. 

Mrs. Wesley gave a scream and ran out into 
the hall, seeking her husband. Cissy turned 
very white, but clenched her psychic hands, 
determined to go on with the performance. 

I saw through it, and though sorry to inter¬ 
fere with Rock’s fun, I turned back the 


12 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Bridge table-cover and exposed one of those 
little contrivances sold at “Magic” stores, 
which consist of a bit of small rubber tubing 
with a bulb on either end. One bulb, a flat 
one, was under the table-cover, directly in 
front of Cissy, and, after the cards were 
placed, a squeeze, by Rock, of the bulb in his 
waistcoat pocket expanded the other bulb and 
sent the cards flying. 

Cissy was mad at first, then she became in¬ 
terested in the working of the toy and de¬ 
clared it was more fun than real Poltergeist] 
' for it was more tractable and obedient. 

, But the outcry brought all the others back 
to the room, and the talk turned to spiritual 
manifestations. Everybody had some experi¬ 
ence to relate that was “positively true,” and 
everybody waited with impatient politeness 
for the current story to be finished, that he or 
she might begin a fresh one. I had a corker 
all ready, and from Lord Herringdean’s tense 
attitude and quivering throat muscles, I knew 
he, too, was waiting to spring into the first 
available pause, when, like a bugle call of 
Taps, Marybelle’s clear, sweet voice brought 
an immediate and tense silence. 

“Now this really happened,” she‘said,"and 
the corroborative gesture of her two hands, 
palms outturned, convinced the most skeptical, 
of us that this indeed would be a true story. 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 13 

“It happened to my mother,” she went on, 
her hands fluttering like uncertain homing 
doves, now and then nesting in her lap. Her- 
ringdean rose from where he was and went to 
sit beside her. I like him for that. Good 
deal of a man, Herringdean. 

“Mother was in bed, but not asleep. It 
was midnight, and though there was no rain¬ 
storm, the wind blew fearfully—fearfully 
—” Marybelle’s voice lingered on the words 
as if loath to continue—“and it was very dark, 
save when, now and then, the moon came for 
a moment from behind the wind clouds. And 
in one of those moments, mother saw a hand.” 
Marybelle held out one white, lovely hand. 
“A long, strong, sinewy yellow hand. “Be¬ 
fore our eyes Marybelle’s hand lost its white¬ 
ness and looked, I thought, like the hand she 
told of. “And it seemed to be lying, inert, at 
the foot of the bed. And then the moonlight 
went out and it was dark. And mother felt, 
through the coverlets, the hand, creeping, 
creeping along her .side. Another drift of 
moonlight showed her the hand, the yellow, 
strong hand, stealthily coming nearer and 
nearer—to her throat.” 

Marybelle’s soft hand crept almost to her 
own lovely throat, and paused as she went on. 

“And then it was dark again, and mother 
felt the hand—felt the awful fingertips on her 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


1 4 

chest—on her throat—and felt the nails sink 
into her flesh. And then a voice whispered, 
‘Not yet! Oh, not yet!’ And there was an 
awful moan; and the moan turned to a shriek 
( and then to a fearsome wail, and the strong, 
yellow fingers reluctantly loosed their hold, 
and removed themselves, one by one—slowly 
—one by one, till there was left only the little 
finger—and that fairly burned into her flesh 
like a live coal. Then with a final shriek the 
little finger tore itself away, and all was si¬ 
lence. When she could do so, mother 
screamed, and we rushed in to find her almost 
crazed with fright. There was a livid burn 
on her throat, and the scar of it always re¬ 
mained—always remained.” 

“Always remained,” echoed another voice, 
and I looked up to see Janet Field looking at 
Marybelle in a spellbound way. Cissy was 
looking at her, in the same way, and Helen 
Wesley, and all the men. There was no other 
way to look at her. She had woven a spell. 
Her low murmuring voice, even more than 
her weird story had well-nigh hypnotized 
us. 

! She smiled now, a long, slow smile, that 
went round the little circle and seemed to 
pause at each face like a questioning spirit. 

“You believe it, Cissy?” she said, softly. 

“Indeed, yes, Marybelle. It was the ma- 


INSIDIOUS MARYBELLE 15 

Serialized hand of a disembodied spirit. An 
evil spirit —Poltergeist - ” 

“Polter your grandmother!” exploded Bel¬ 
lamy, who couldn’t stand everything. “Now, 
see here, Marybelle—” he had known her 
from childhood—“my ghost was made of hon¬ 
est-to-goodness India rubber, but we don’t 
'want these creepy-crawly ghosts, made of 
shivers and shrieks! Never again, please 1 ” 1 

“But I know another one.” And Mary- 
belle’s hands put their pink fingertips together 
pleadingly. 

“My word!” exclaimed Herringdean. “If 
you do, don’t tell it! You froze me stiff with 
horror with that one! Come and see if you 
can thaw me out. Come, my Marybelle.” 
He stood before her, very handsome in his 
pleading. 

“Any time, anywhere,” she murmured, and 
with a smile into his eyes that would have 
turned the head of St. Anthony, she went 
away with him. 

“I know a story-” began Cissy. But 

Janet Field, in Marybelle’s absence, took the 
helm. 

“No, Cissy,” she said, lightly, glancing at 
Helen Wesley’s white face, “no more stories 
tonight. I forbid it. Marybelle’s announce¬ 
ment party mustn’t be turned into a spook- 
fest. And it’s time for supper, anyway.” 


16 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

l |H ' | 

“Supper, hooray!” cried Bellamy. “Noth¬ 
ing like food to drive away spooks. Mrs. 
Wesley, come along o’ me. A loaf of bread 
and a jug of wine will bring back the rose of 
youth to your pale cheeks.” 

“Saucy boy! Just for that you must give 
me that bulb trick thing. I’ll take it home to 
little Frank, he’ll have lots of fun with it.” 

“Yes, and get kept in after school! But 
you may have it. Let the kiddy scare his 
nurse into fits, if he likes.” 

Janet Field marshaled us out to the dining 
room for supper, which was even merrier, for 
it was less formal, than the dinner. No word 
was spoken of ghosts or on any subject less 
gay than love and marriage. The betrothed 
pair arrived after a time. They were so hap¬ 
py it seemed a shame to tease them, but we 
did, more or less, for the pleasure of seeing 
Marybelle pout or storm or look reproach¬ 
ful, each of which she did better than the 
other. 

About midnight, we were all sent to bed, for 
our hostess said, there were heaps of things 
planned for the next day, and there must be 
no sluggards. We scattered, the men going 
for a short time to the smoking room; and 
the women, with bedroom candles, pausing 
for a good-night chat on the stair-landing. 

I went up about one o’clock. Spears, the 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 17 

butler and general major-domo, showed me 
to my room on the third floor. It was a 
large, corner front room, well furnished in an 
old-fashioned way, and exceedingly comforta¬ 
ble. I went to bed, but not for a moment did 
I dream that the morrow was to bring to me 
the case I had longed for, the mystery I 
yearned to solve. 

And yet, even as I slept, the Great Moss 
Mystery transpired. 


CHAPTER II 

MURDER OR SUICIDE 

J WAS wakened in the morning by a sound 
of knocking. It was not at my own door, 
so I lay still, lazily wondering who was being 
so persistently summoned. The knocking 
continued at intervals and I knew by the 
sound it was at a door on the floor below, but 
I could not tell at what room. It seemed, 
though, to be directly beneath me. I had no 
idea who occupied the room below mine, but 
as the knocking was repeated and I heard sev¬ 
eral voices in confused mumbling, I sat up in 
bed to listen. 

Then, after a sudden tap at my own door, 
Frank Wesley burst into my room, exclaim¬ 
ing, “Get up, Prall; fling on some clothes 
and come downstairs. There’s something the 
matter.” 

He disappeared, and I made a record toi¬ 
let. Not stopping to shave, but otherwise 
presentable, I hurried downstairs, to find a 
,group of people at the door of the bedroom 
just below the one I had slept in. 

“It’s Marybelle’s room,” said Wesley, in 
answer to my inquiring look, “and she won’t 

18 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 19 

answer to knocking or calls. We’re afraid 
she’s—she’s ill.” 

I looked at the anxious faces. Helen Wes¬ 
ley, in kimono and cap, huddled against the 
door of her own room, which was next back, 
and moaned in fright. 

“Keep still, Helen,” said her husband; 
“she’s all right. Only overslept. Maybe 
took a sleeping powder or something, after the 
excitement of the evening, and its effects 
haven’t worked off.” • 

“She never takes thoseTthings, sir.” This 
from a trim maid, who, with a face as white 
as her apron, stood trembling by. 

“Lor’ no, sir,” and a stout woman in the 
background put her arm round the girl, “as 
Vida says, sir, Mis’ Moss, she ain’t never held 
to drugses. She alius wakes hersel’, long 
afore she’s called. I’m the cook, sir. Vida, 
she kem runnin’ to me, when she couldn’t 
make Mis’ Moss let her in. Oh, what is to 
pay?” 

“It’s a trick,” I said sapiently. “Mrs. Moss 
is doing this to make a sensation, and to fool us, 
into thinking she’s asleep. All the time she] 
is sitting on the edge of her bed, chuckling at 
our scare.” 

“Oh, do you think so?” and Helen Wesley 
looked greatly relieved. “Then beg her to 
stop fooling and open the door. Here comes 


20 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Miss Field. You call Marybelle, won’t you, 
Janet?” 

“Why? What’s the matter?” The girl 
looked in amazement at the strange scene. 

“She won’t answer us,” went on Helen. 

“She’s joking, you know-” 

“Joking!” and Miss Field’s brow cleared. 
“That’s like her. But if she’s made up her 
mind not to speak, she wouldn’t answer me. 
You know Marybelle’s stubbornness, if she 
makes up her mind.” 

“Yes, I do. But this is too bad. If she’s 
tricking us, all right. But she may be ill, or 
fainted. I don’t like it.” 

Then Helen went close to the door and whis¬ 
pered coaxingly that we were distressed at her 
silence and please wouldn’t she speak to us? 
But there was no response. 

Cissy Carreau and Lord Herringdean had 
rooms on the second floor, and almost simul¬ 
taneously they appeared from their doors. 
Cissy, having heard a commotion, but not 
knowing the circumstances, was in fetching 
negligee, but the Earl was fully and conven¬ 
tionally attired. 

S “What is it all about?” he asked politely. ■ 
f We told him, and his face went ashen gray. 
“Marybelle!” he exclaimed. “She must be 
ill! She would never chaff us so heartlessly!” 
“Yes, she would,” cried Cissy. “I know 



MURDER OR SUICIDE 


21 


her! The rogue! She wants us to break in 
the door, and then see her, sitting up in bed, 
in a chiffon negligee and rosebuddy cap with 
her pearl necklace on, laughing at us!” 

“Pearl necklace!” exclaimed Miss Field; 
“she hasn’t any.” 

“Oh, hasn’t she?” laughed Cissy. “You 
know better, don’t you, Lord Herringdean?” 

The Earl smiled. “How should I know?” 
he said. 

“How should you know!” mocked Cissy. 
“But I won’t tell the secret. Hello, Rock, 
come and make Marybelle let us in. She’s 
planning a surprise for us, she told me so, and 
this is the beginning of it. Come, help the 
good work along.” 

Rock Bellamy, drawn by the noise we made, 
came downstairs. He, too, had slept on the 
third floor, but back, and only waked as the 
commotion increased. 

“What’s the matter with you people?” he 
growled; “can’t you let a fellow sleep ? What 
are you trying to do?” 

“Get into Marybelle’s room,” answered 
Cissy. 

“A nice occupation, I must say. If she de¬ 
sired your company in there, she’d doubtless 
invite you.” 

“Say something funny, Rock. Make her 
laugh.” 


22 THE MOSS MYSfERY 

“Yes, do,” said Wesley. “I’m getting wor¬ 
ried. She’s got us all here now—tell her to 
spring her surprise, whatever it is.” 

Bellamy leant down, his lips at the keyhole. 

Quickly he stood upright. “I smell gas,” 
he said, in a low, curt tone. 

The merriment faded from the faces. It 
had been forced, anyhow, and every one felt 
that tragedy, not comedy, impended. 

“Break down that door!” Rock exclaimed. 
“Shall I do it?” 

“Oh, I don’t know,” said the Earl, starting 
forward, “isn’t that rather—er-” 

“No matter if it is rather! It must be 
done. What say, Frank?” 

Bellamy’s burly form was already against 
the door, but he paused for Wesley’s word. 

“Why, yes, I suppose so. Can you do it?” 

“Not alone,” said Rock, after a tentative 
push. “It’s bolted as well as locked. Does 
Mrs. Moss usually bolt her door, Vida?” 

“Yes, sir,” stammered the maid; “that is, 
not always, but sometimes, when she has valu¬ 
ables about. She always locks it, sir.” 

“Well, it’s bolted now, and I’m not going to 
take chances on this thing being a joke. Smell 
the gas, Prall.” 

I leaned to the keyhole, which was covered 
by a brass guard. This I impatiently pushed 
aside, and distinctly smelled gas. 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 23 

“There’s something wrong. By all means 
break down the door, or get in some way, as 
quickly as possible. Is there any other en¬ 
trance?” 

“No,” said Janet Field, coming nearer and 
leaning down to the keyhole. “Oh, there is 
gas escaping! Get in somehow, do!” 

“Shall I call Elmer?” said Mrs. Blum, the 
cook. “He’s a ter’ble strong man.” 

“Yes, yes, call Elmer, whoever he is,” said 
I. “And call him quick.” 

Elmer, who was the chauffeur, came, and 
he and Bellamy together somehow burst the 
door open. An overpowering volume of gas 
belched forth, and the women screamed and 
ran from the doorway. 

As everybody fell back, by reason of the 
suffocating fumes, I held my handkerchief to 
my face and dashed into the room. I saw at 
once that the gas came from an open burner 
on the great center chandelier. I turned it off 
instantly, noting that no other burner was 
open. 

“Keep out for a minute,” I called to those 
in the hall. Then I opened a window. It 
was securely fastened, with a patent contrap¬ 
tion which took me a few seconds to manipu¬ 
late, but I got it raised and also another, and 
slowly the air began to purify. 

I unwillingly looked at the bed. There lay 


24 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Marybelle, beautiful as a vision, one lovely 
arm flung above her head, and a soft smile on 
her face. Her eyes were closed, and I knew, 
in that first glance, that they would never open 
again in this world. 

I want to say, right here, for the sake of my 
own self-respect, that my only emotions at that 
moment were the deepest sorrow and grief 
for the young life so suddenly and sadly ended. 

But as people began to edge timidly over 
the threshold, I awoke to the exigencies of the 
situation. 

“Come in, Wesley,” I said, quietly, “and 
Lord Herringdean. Nobody else, for a mo¬ 
ment.” 

The two men entered, and saw, as I had 
seen, the awful truth. The Earl went closer, 
and gently laid his hand on the laces of her 
night-dress. Then he touched her cheek. 

“She is dead,” he said, and though he 
showed no emotion, I knew that that was his 
English way, and not because he felt none. 

“No!” cried Wesley, and he, too, reverently 
touched the pale face. “It may not be too 
late, Prall! Send for a doctor.” 

“Yes, send,” I said, and Wesley hurried 
away to telephone. 

Miss Field entered softly, without waiting 
for permission. And, indeed, who was I, that 
I should give or withhold it? 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 2$ 

“What does it mean?” she said, in an awe¬ 
struck voice. 

“An accident,” I returned. “An awful ac¬ 
cident. The gas burner was turned on full, 
and the fumes asphyxiated her.” 

“Are you sure she—she is-” 

“Yes, Miss Field, there is no hope. But 
we have sent for the doctor.” 

“But can’t we do something ourselves? Ar¬ 
tificial respiration-” 

“Not a chance. The flesh is cold, even stif¬ 
fened. I know something of these matters, 
and I should judge she has been dead an hour 
or more.” 

“This gas is terrible,” and Janet put her 
hand to her brow. “Can you not get it out?” 

“It will soon go, now. But I will open an¬ 
other window.” 

' The room had four large windows, two 
north and two east. These were each se¬ 
curely fastened with the patent catches, until 
I opened them. I took careful note of this, 
calling Miss Field’s attention to it for future 
corroboration. 

“Is it not strange,” I said, “that Mrs. Moss 
should sleep with no ventilation?” 

“She is subject to asthma,” returned the 
girl, “and on very cold nights she always 
closes all her room windows. She ventilates 
through the bathroom.” 



26 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

For the first time, I noticed a door leading 
to a bathroom. It was ajar, and I stepped 
through. The bathroom window—there was 
but one—was open for the space of about six 
inches, and fastened in that position by a side 
catch. I could readily see, that though this 
might be deemed sufficient by some people for 
ventilation, it was really a very small aper¬ 
ture, and, as it had proved, was utterly inade¬ 
quate to allow the gas to escape. I went back 
to the bedroom. Bellamy and Cissy were 
standing together,* looking down at poor 
Marybelle. 

I made a gesture to Wesley, which he un¬ 
derstood. 

“Prall,” he said, so that all could hear, “I 
wish you’d take command here. It’s a serious 
matter, and we must move carefully. I’ve 
called the doctor; he’ll be here shortly. Mean¬ 
time, we will all do as you say.” 

“Very well,” I returned. “I’ve no real 
authority, but you, Wesley, are the nearest of 
kin here, or rather, your wife is, so I’ll do as 
you ask. And I will request that the room 
be cleared, and no one comes in again, until 
after the doctor’s arrival.” 

Lord Herringdean went away at once; 
without a word. Cissy went reluctantly, 
fairly dragged off by Bellamy. Miss Field 
had already gone, called away by a servant, 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 


and Helen hadn’t been in the room at all. I 
could hear her sobbing in her own room, next 
door. Wesley stayed, and he and I went right 
to the crucial question. 

“Accident or suicide?” I said briefly. 

“Oh, never suicide! Marybelle kill her¬ 
self? Never!” 

“But how could it be accidental?” I asked. 
“Look, Frank, the gas burner is too high for 
her to have reached. See, it is fully eight 
feet from the floor. I can’t reach it by nearly 
a foot.” 

“By George, that’s so. How did they ever 
light the thing?” 

“It undoubtedly hasn’t been used for years, 
not since they put in the electrics. When 
they used to burn gas they would use those 
long lighters, with wax tapers on them, and a 
slotted end to turn on the gas.” 

“Then how did it get turned on here? 
Where’s the lighter?” 

Wesley and I looked about, but saw no im-, 
plement of the sort. 

“Of course there isn’t one about now,” I 
said musingly. “If Marybelle turned on the 
gas purposely-” 

“She never did!” 

“If she did, she climbed on a chair or some¬ 
thing. If it was turned on accidentally, it 
was hit by something. But what? What 


28 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


could possibly hit that high fixture, and Mary- 
belle not notice it?” 

A “She would notice the escaping gas at 
once.” 

“Of course she would. That’s why I say 
it wasn’t an accident.” 

“But, man alive, think a minute! Why 
would she kill herself just now? Now, when 
she is so happy and on the brink of a marriage 
that would bring her a title and a fortune!” 

“I don’t look for motives at the moment, 
I’m looking for facts. There’s a mighty big 
mystery here, my boy, and we’re just at the be¬ 
ginning of it.” 

I wanted to examine that gas burner, and I 
looked about for a chair to stand on. But the 
only ones I saw were fussy little willow rock¬ 
ers, low and unsteady; a dressing-table chair, 
firmer, but equally low; and a pair of low ot¬ 
tomans. None of these would allow me to 
reach the key of the burner, even if they 
would have borne my weight, which I 
doubted. 

“Here’s one,” said Wesley, beginning to 
take some clothing of! of a higher chair. 

“Stop!” I cried. “Don’t disturb evidence. 
Note those things, Frank. See, they are 
Marybelle’s clothes laid out for morning. I 
happen to know she was going to ride with 
Herringdean, early, and this is her riding 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 29 

habit. See the fresh white waistcoat, care¬ 
fully placed, and the coat, hung over the chair 
back.” 

“Yes, that’s so.” 

“Well, listen, then. Supposing suicide, for 
a moment. There’s no chair that would bring 
Marybelle high enough to touch that key but 
this one. If she used it, then she laid all these 
clothes on it so carefully, after she had turned 
on the gas! Is that likely?” 

“Lord, no! But, on the other hand, how 
could she accidentally hit the thing without 
knowing it? What did she hit it with?” 

“I can’t imagine. Would she have one of 
those hats with tall plumes-” 

“Nonsense! A feather couldn’t turn on a 
gas jet!” 

“Her riding hat, then? Is that tall?” 

“It’s what they call a high hat, yes. But 
you know the height of a topper! Not more 
than six inches or so. That wouldn’t be any¬ 
where near that high burner. And accident 
is impossible, for she would have smelled the 
gas at once, or very soon. Long before she 
could go to bed and get to sleep.” 

Then Doctor Hewitt came. He was a 
fussy old man, and taciturn. Miss Field 
brought him to the room, and then asked me to 
go down and have some breakfast. 

But my mind was made up,, “Look here, 



3 o THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Miss Janet,” I said, “I am a detective. Mrs. 
Moss’s death is, to my mind, a mystery. I 
am not going to leave this room, except when 
it is empty and locked, until I have solved the 
mystery, to my own satisfaction, at least. In 
a way, now, you are mistress here. Have you 
any objections to my remaining in the room?” 

“Why, I’m not mistress here,” said the girl, 
looking startled, as at a new idea. 

“No, but you’re a member of the house¬ 
hold, and so, in authority over the servants 
and appointments. At least, I hope you will 
feel that you are, for otherwise, who will look 
after things?” 

Miss Field looked thoughtful. “Of course, 
I’m willing to do anything I can, to be help¬ 
ful, but perhaps Mrs. Wesley will feel that I 
am presumptuous.” , 

i “She is a relative, to be sure, but she is so 
broken up and nervous, that I’m sure she can’t 
attend to any—any of the things that—that 
must be attended to, and I’m sure she’d be 
glad to have you-” 

“Yes, Mr. Prall, I understand. Well, so 
far as I am wanted to do anything, anything 
at all, I shall be glad to be of service.” 

Janet Field was a fine girl, and I knew she 
understood, without further words, that I 
meant funeral arrangements, and perhaps 
even more harrowing scenes. The mystery of 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 


3 r 

Marybelle Moss’s death must be cleared up, 
and meantime someone must keep the house¬ 
hold machinery running, and I knew poor lit¬ 
tle distracted Helen Wesley couldn’t do it. 

Miss Field stood looking at me. She was 
slender and very straight and carried herself 
like a young Diana. I had never noticed be¬ 
fore that she was beautiful—no, jiot that, but 
very fine-looking. Her heavy hair was jet 
black and her eyes, large, soft and black, with 
heavy brows and lashes. I remembered my 
theory about hair, and concluded she had 
great intuition. Her skin was a clear olive,, 
and she had a way of drawing her eyes to¬ 
gether, that intensified her gaze until she 
seemed to read your very soul. She looked 
at me this way now. 

“Mr. Prall,” she said, “what killed Mary¬ 
belle?” 

“Asphyxiation.” \ 

“Oh, I know that. I mean, how did it hap¬ 
pen?” 

“That is the-mystery, Miss Field. Was the 
gas chandelier ever used in here?” 

“Oh, never. Nor anywhere in the house. 
The electric-” 

We had been talking in low tones, while the 
Doctor made his examinations. We were 
standing near the door of the room, out of the 
way, and now Doctor Hewitt spoke to me. 



v ■ffp iv:m ■ ■ -'-r$.: y ? *• ;: '■ 

32 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

“You’re a detective, I’m told, sir.” 

“Yes/’ I replied, “that is my profession, 
Doctor.” 

“Then I hope you’ll make out this puzzle.j 
It’s the Devil’s work somehow, but I can’t see; 
how. I’ve known Marybelle all her life, and 
* while full of the dickens in lots of ways, she 
never would take her own life. This is no* 
suicide, no, sir! Again, it couldn’t be. Why,| 
she hasn’t been dead more than two hours at 
most. And it would take maybe—perhaps—' 
well, say about two hours for death to ensue 
from the time the gas was turned on. Lem-] 
mesee, that would make it—it’s nearly nine, 
now—that gas was turned on in the neighbor-] 
hood of between four and five o’clock this 
morning.” 

“As late as that!” I cried, chagrined at my 
thoughtlessness that could have been imagin¬ 
ing it turned on before the victim had gone to 
bed. 

“Yes, or not much earlier. It’s hard to say, 
exactly. There’s the size of the jet to be con¬ 
sidered. Let’s take a look at it.” 

J fetched a chair from the hall, and stand¬ 
ing on it, felt the top of the gas burner. 

“Why!” I exclaimed, “there’s no lava tip' 
on it!” 

“No tip! Then no wonder the gas poured; 
out in such yolumes, Are you sure£” 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 33 

“Of course I’m sure. It’s not surprising, 
that. The chandelier hasn’t been used for 
years, and in cleaning, the tip has been 
brushed off and never replaced.” 

“How about the other burners?” 

There were eight in all, and every one had 
a tip except the one that I had turned off. 

“Perhaps you knocked the tip off when you 
turned off the gas,” suggested Doctor Hewitt, 
who was keen-witted, for all his fussiness. 

“No,” said I, thinking hard, “I’m sure I 
didn’t. The glass globe would prevent that. 
But we can look around on the floor.” 

“How did you reach it to turn it off, any¬ 
way? It’s very high.” 

“I jumped for it,” I replied. “When I 
entered, and the gas was so terrible, I sprang 
up at the key and turned it off with a twist. 
I remember it shook the chandelier pretty 
hard. But it didn’t jar the tip out. These 
others are in too tightly to make that idea 
plausible.” 

“Then that tip was taken out purposely, and 
it must be suicide, after all.” 

“Or-” I prompted. 

“Don’t say it. Let us exhaust all other pos¬ 
sibilities first.” 

Then Cissy caihe and begged me so prettily 
to come and get some breakfast, that I yielded 
to her persuasion. Doctor Hewitt promised 



34 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 

to remain in the room until I returned, and to 
allow no one to touch or disarrange a thing. 
I knew the coroner would have to come, and 
probably soon, so I wanted to get a bite to 
eat and be ready to return before he arrived. 

Poor little Cissy had cried until she was 
quite worn out, and she was quivering with 
nervous excitement and exhaustion. We 
went together to the dining room, and she 
poured my coffee and ordered hot muffins for 
me, as if glad of any trivial occupation. Her- 
ringdean stood looking out of a window. BeL 
lamy was at the table, his merry quips for 
once silenced. 

“Anything new?” he asked me, abruptly. 

“No, nothing definite. Doctor Hewitt says 
death occurred between six and seven.” 

“And there was I, right across the hall!” 
exclaimed Cissy. “I have the other front 
room, and I lay there sleeping, while Mary- 
belle was dying.” She broke down utterly 
and ran from the room. 

1 “Let’s get at some facts,” said Rock Bel¬ 
lamy. “Who first gave the alarm?” 

“I don’t know,” I said; “Wesley came up 
and called me, and when I got down, there 
were severaLpeople in the hall by the door.” 

“Call that maid, and ask her something 
about it.” 

I rang a bell and the waitress came. I 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 35 

asked her to send in the maid, Vida, and she 
said she would. Lord Herringdean turned 
round at this, and seemed ready to take part in 
the conversation. 

Vida came, pale and red-eyed. She was 
nervous, but readily answered our questions. 

“Tell us about it, Vida,” I said after a few 
queries. “Tell us all that happened from the 
time you came down from your own room.” 

“From the time I came down?” she said, 
and the look on her face was curious to see. 
“Then, it is this way.'^Tam the chambermaid, 
but also, I am much the personal maid of 
Madame. She does not like a lady’s maid, 
and yet, there are many things I can do for 
her. She tells me last night, waken her at 
eight, oh, but surely at eight, as she goes for 
the early ride with my lord, the Earl. So I 
obey, and at eight, precise, I go and tap at 
Madame’s door. She does not answer, and 
though I dislike to disturb her slumber, yet I 
must obey, and I tap again, yet many times. 
But always is there no response, and I feel a 
queerness, almost a fear. I go at last and tell 
Mrs. Blum, the cook. She laughs at my fear 
and says I must rap more loudly. I go back 
and rap quite, quite loud, and I call, softly, 
and then more loud, but never is there any an¬ 
swer. The rest you know.” 

The very simplicity of Vida’s story made it 


36 THE MOSS MYSTERY * 

dramatic. The girl was agitated, but con¬ 
trolled herself admirably, and at last, dis¬ 
missed, she left the room with a bowed head 
and rapidly filling eyes. 

We left the dining room, and I was about 
to return to the room of the tragedy, when the 
Earl detained me. 

“What do you think is the true cause of her 
death, Mr. Prall?” he asked, and though he 
was absolutely composed of countenance, his 
voice shook. 

I looked at him straightforwardly. Some¬ 
how, I liked him less at that moment than I 
had before. “I cannot say, Lord Herring- 
dean,” I answered, “but there is a deep mys¬ 
tery behind it, that will not be easily solved. 
You cannot think she would bring about her 
own death, can you?” 

“I cannot think so. She was happy, I am 
sure, in anticipation of her marriage to me; 
and unless she had some secret cause for de¬ 
siring death, I cannot imagine she would seek 
it voluntarily.” 

“What is this about a pearl necklace?” I 
asked. “Forgive me if I am intrusive, but 
the occasion calls for frankness.” 

“Of course. It is no secret now. I gave 
her. the necklace last evening after dinner. 
We were alone in the little library, and as I 
clasped it round her throat she took it off 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 37 

again and said she would not let her friends 
see it until to-day. It was a pretty bit of senti¬ 
ment on her part, I think. She said she 
wanted it all to herself for one night.” 

“The necklace has not been found, that I 
know of.” 

“Has it been looked for?” 

“Probably not, as no one knew she had it.” 

“Then it will be found, wherever she put it 
for safe keeping.” 

I liked his lordship for not showing more 
concern in this matter, but I still felt that in¬ 
definable distaste for his manner otherwise. 
He was cold, and ill at ease. Had he been 
frankly grieving, I would have forgiven him 
much, but his detached air offended me. 

Cissy Carreau came flying downstairs, and 
joined us as we stood in the hall. 

“I know all about it now!” she cried, her 
eyes wide and her white face strained and 
eerie looking. “It was the Poltergeist!” 

“Cissy! Be quiet!” said Rock, seizing the 
girl by the arm. “Don’t talk that nonsense 
now!” 

“ ’Tisn’t nonsense! Let go my arm, Rock. 
Mr. Prall, you see, you must see, it’s that—the 
Evil Spirit! Oh! I can’t tell you, if you don’t 
understand! I mean the bad, tricky spirits 
that come to some people and torment them. 
And don’t you see, it couldn't have been any- 


38 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

thing else. Marybelle wouldn’t take her own 
life, just now, when she was so happy! Oh, 
you don’t know how happy she was! I know, 
she had confided in me a great deal. She was 
wildly, gloriously happy! She never left 
such happiness purposely! Nor could it pos¬ 
sibly have been an accident. I’ve been study¬ 
ing it out. The Doctor says she—it happened 
early this morning, the turning on the gas jet, 
I mean—about four o’clock maybe. How 
could an accident happen then? Marybelle 
was asleep. She was always a sound sleeper, 
except when her asthma bothered her. And 
the room was locked, bolted, and the windows 
fastened. Nobody could get in. And the 
Poltergeist, the wicked evil ghost came and 
turned on the jet and left it turned on!” 

Cissy’s voice nearly failed her, she shook 
like a leaf, and her eyes burned in her white, 
quivering face, but she went on: “And don’t 
you know what the Poltergeist was? What 
form it took? It was the hand—the long, yel¬ 
low hand, that killed her mother? Oh, no, 
she didn’t tell you last night, when she told 
that story, that her mother died of the effects 
of the yellow hand. No, she didn’t want to 
tell the tragedy entirely. But that is true, her 
mother did die soon after that experience. 
Marybelle told me the story long ago, but she 
never told it in public before—and the PoU 


MURDER OR SUICIDE 39 

tergeist thought she was making fun—and she 
was—and in revenge the Yellow Hand, the 
Poltergeist Yellow Hand, came and turned on 
Marybelle’s gas jet! Oh, don’t you see it! 
Don’t you see it! What other hand could have 
done it? Tell me that!” 

It was Janet Field who tried to quiet the 
overexcited girl. 

“Come with me, Cissy, dear,” she said, 
soothingly, “come with me to your room and 
let’s talk this over quietly.” 

“No, I won’t. You know, Janet, I’m speak¬ 
ing the truth. You know how locked up the 
room was, you know nobody could possibly 
get in to turn on that gas, and you know Mary- 
beile didn’t do it, and couldn’t if she had want¬ 
ed to. So you know—you know it must have 
been the Yellow Hand! Don’t you know it, 
Janet? Don’t you know it was in revenge 
for Marybelle’s telling about the hand last 
night? Answer me, Janet! Don’t you know 
it was the hand of revenge?” 

Her eyes glared now, and Janet seeing the 
danger of contradiction, said impetuously, 
“Yes, Cissy, yes, it must have been that!” 

None of us blamed Janet for agreeing with 
the frenzied girl, whether she spoke truth or 
not, and to my surprise, Lord Herringdean 
said slowly, “There is no other solution. Call 
it absurd, if you will, there is no other way to 


4 o THE MOSS MYSTERY 

I 

account for the death of my fiancee. When 
there is no possibility of a human hand in the 
matter, we must admit it to be the work of the 
fiends.” 

“You know,” cried Cissy, suddenly calmer. 
“You understand, because you loved Mary- 
belle. Oh, that awful hand, creeping up, up, 
up, and turning, turning, turning-” 

And then Janet succeeded in getting the girl 
to go away with her, and I knew Cissy would 
be tenderly cared for. 

As for me, I had my heart’s desire at last. 
I grieved deeply for beautiful Marybelle, I 
sympathized with the Earl, I was sorry for 
Janet Field and Helen Wesley. But quite 
aside and apart from all this, almost, it seemed, 
with another mentality, I rejoiced at my op¬ 
portunity, come at last! I had the unravel¬ 
ing to do, of the mystery I had longed for; a 
mysterious death in an inaccessible room. Let 
the solution be Poltergeist, if it chose, or acci¬ 
dent, or suicide, or murder in the first de¬ 
gree, let the solution be as difficult, as impossi¬ 
ble as it might, I would find it! 

I had not the slightest fear of failure, the 
conditions should baffle me not a whit; I 
would find the cause of Marybelle Moss’s 
death, whether it was by some simple, natural 
means or was the work of the Hand of Re¬ 
venge. 


CHAPTER III 

THE MOONSTONE RING 

'foCT OW, given a mysterious death, the i'n- 
^ ^ quest must follow, as the night the day. 
And this custom, established by tradition and 
long usage, will, I suppose, always obtain. 
But to me, an inquest is a thing inapt, inept, 
inopportune. From its bushel of chaff you 
may get a grain of wheat in evidence, and 
then, again, you may not. But the inquest is 
a necessary evil and the coroner is an evil ne¬ 
cessity, so we must put up with both. 

To me, the hours of that day simply flew. 
I, and I may as well admit my baseness from 
the first, had a haunting fear that a plain and 
ordinary solution of the mystery—say, burg¬ 
lar or proven accident—would reveal itself, 
and I would be nicked out of the chance that 
had come to me to give my ingenuity full play. 
And this is not as cold-blooded as it might 
seem at first blush. Marybelle was dead, 
nothing could restore her life, and if she had 
been murdered, it would at least give us the 
gruesome satisfaction of punishing the crim¬ 
inal. 


41 


42 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

That happy, hopeful young life must be 
avenged; and if there were a murderer to be 
found, I knew I should find him. He could 
not escape my pursuit, for I was prepared to 
put to use the very limit of my cleverness and 
skill. That bride-to-be lay down, I was cer¬ 
tain, with calm assuredness of waking next 
morning to take up her life of new happiness, 
with anticipation of more and better joys as 
time went by. 

Instead, the house now was invaded by 
strange people. Coroner, doctors, police, de¬ 
tectives, reporters, and shoals of helpful or 
curious neighbors filled Woodshurst with an 
atmosphere in which mystery and crime jos¬ 
tled against sorrow and mourning. 

The coroner’s name was Kemble and the 
inspector’s was Blair. I suppose the jury, 
hastily gotten together, had names, but they 
interested me no more than a page of the tele¬ 
phone book. 

In fact, I didn’t attend the first part of the 
inquest. The preliminary proceedings were 
of no use to my quest, and, too, I had made 
friends with a bright young reporter and he 
promised to record for me anything I might 
otherwise miss. 

I knew the routine. Coroner Kemble 
would ask questions with the air of a recently- 
degreed owl, and then his precious jury would 


THE MOONSTONE RING 43 

noddingly arrive at false conclusions and* re¬ 
turn an open verdict. 

When called upon, I was ready and willing 
to tell all I knew of the whole matter, but in 
the meantime, I had only the laudable pur¬ 
pose of increasing that knowledge. 

But I am getting a little, oh, just a very lit¬ 
tle, ahead of my story. It was during the first 
examination of the bedroom by the police, 
that I, too, made my first thorough examina¬ 
tion. They didn’t bother me. The coroner, 
the inspector, and a little Central Office de¬ 
tective, named Weldon, fussed and fiddled, 
around, looking up the chimney most of the 
time, in their eagerness to find entrance to that 
locked and bolted room. 

I remarked that I was going to examine the 
chandelier, and as no one objected, I sent for 
a short step-ladder. A three-step affair was 
brought me, which was just what I wanted, as 
it gave me ample access to the high burners, 
without getting in their way. 

Instead of removing the glass shade from 
the burner that had been turned on, I climbed 
up and looked over. I had already felt it, 
over the top of the shade, and found it tipless. 
But now, able to see the burner from above, I 
nearly fell off the step-ladder at what I saw. 
Oh, yes, I know Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t 
have moved a facial muscle, if he had seen a 


44 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

jack-in-the-box jump out at him from the gas 
globe; but I am like that man only in capa¬ 
bility, not at all in manner. 

Still, I kept my rather insecure footing, and 
picked out the object. It was a ring, a lady’s 
gold ring, set with a moonstone. I looked at 
it thoroughly, though not with a lens (I told 
you my mannerisms were different, and be¬ 
sides, I hadn’t a lens with me.) Then I put 
it back where I had found it, came down and 
told Blair. 

Greatly excited, he flew up the steps, two at a 
time, as far as he could, there were only three, 
and taking off the gas globe gave it to me to 
hold,whileheshowedoff the ring to all present. 

I called his attention to the fact that the 
globe was very dusty inside, and the ring was 
not dusty, nor was the burner. He looked 
wise at this, but as he didn’t know what he was 
looking wise about, I volunteered the infor¬ 
mation that, as the ring had not been dusty 
when I spied it, so far as one can judge of 
such a small article, it seemed to me it had 
been placed in that strange position quite 
lately. The gas never being used, the high 
globes were not frequently washed. 

“Just what I think,” courteously agreed 
Blair, and pocketing the ring for evidence, 
he replaced the glass shade and came down the 
steps. 


THE MOONSTONE RING r Zx 

£ rrJ j 

The ring business nonplussed me. Had 
Marybelle put it there for safekeeping? I 
knew her fear of burglars, and it was a good 
hiding place, so that doubtless explained it. 
But if she chose such a clever hiding place for 
a ring of but moderate value at most, where 
had she concealed her pearl necklace? 

I never should have thought of looking for 
a ring on the gas burner, if I hadn’t been look¬ 
ing there for other reasons. Surely the mys¬ 
tery was deepening every moment. 

Well, we found nothing else as queer as 
that, but we found some pretty conclusive evi¬ 
dence, at least it seemed to me, that Marybelle 
didn’t kill herself. 

And this was letters, quite a pile of them, on 
her writing desk; all addressed and stamped, 
doubtless to go by the morning’s mail. Mr. 
Kemble at once opened them, though I was 
not sure that he was altogether within his 
.rights. We read them, and after the reading 
I never again entertained the idea of suicide. 
Every one was full of plans, appointments 
and engagements for the next day or two. 
One to a dressmaker made an arrangement 
for fitting a gown. One, to a dentist, asked 
for an appointment at his office. Two or 
three accepted invitations, or gave them. 

One important one was to her lawyer, Mr. 
Curtis, and asked him to come to see her as 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


§§ 

soon as possible, as she wanted to change her 
will. She stated that her reason for this was 
her engagement, only just now announced, 
and she hoped Mr. Curtis would find it con¬ 
venient to come at once, on receipt of her 
letter. 

Another, and very personal one, was to an 
intimate woman friend, and told of the en¬ 
gagement, the announcement party and the 
early probable date of the wedding. It ex¬ 
pressed such an exuberance of happiness, such 
an exultant joy of living, that it was impossi¬ 
ble to believe it was not sincere. It told, also, 
of the present of the pearl necklace and said 
that Marybelle planned to surprise her guests 
with it on the morrow. And it wound up by 
saying, “I hope I can make Geoffrey happy, 
and I feel sure I shall. He is a different type 
from Bradley, and his tastes are more congen¬ 
ial to my own.” 

Bradley MosS was her first husband, and 
though I had never known him, I had heard 
rumors from the Wesleys of the uneven tenor 
of Marybelle’s married life. 

Now, who could believe in the face of those 
letters, written late the night before, after her 
announcement of her betrothal, that the writ¬ 
er would voluntarily cut short the happy life 
she anticipated? 

But Weldon demurred a little, saying that 

\ mm 


THE MOONSTONE RING 47 

if the lady had wanted to kill herself, she 
would write just such letters to divert suspi¬ 
cion. But I couldn’t admit such an overdo¬ 
ing of that idea. If it were a true theory, 
Marybelle might have written one letter or 
two, making appointments, but not so many 
or so real. 

I looked again at the chairs in the room. 
Without doubt, as she sat at her desk to write, 
she had used that straight chair, slightly high¬ 
er than the others. But even with that, I saw 
she couldn’t have reached the gas key. Nor, 
would she have done so if she could, and then 
afterward have used that chair to lay out her 
morning’s costume! It was too absurd. 
Machiavelli himself wouldn’t have observed 
such minutiae of detail. 

Lawyer Curtis arrived about then, and we 
showed him the letter to himself. He looked 
very grave, and said it was most unfortunate 
that she hadn’t sent him that message sooner. 

“Why, who is her heir?” asked Blair 
quickly. 

“Several minor legacies, and Mrs. Wesley, 
residuary legatee,” answered Curtis briefly, 
as he stood frowning in thought. 

My heart gave a jump. If this were not 
suicide, and I positively couldn’t see the way 
clear to an accident, then it must be murder. 
And if murder, then the first question would 


48 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

be, motive. And the heirs-at-law would be 
looked at first. But the Wesleys! Impossi¬ 
ble! 

However, for that matter, everything about 
the case was impossible. There wasn’t a pos¬ 
sibility of solution that I could lay my hand 
on anywhere, and I began to welcome the 
thought of the queries at the inquest, which 
would, at least, tabulate the impossibilities. 

We went on with the scrutiny of the room. 
When I say that it was inaccessible, I have 
said all. 

There were two doors of exit. One, to the 
hall, by which we had burst in, the other 
opened into the Wesleys’ room, next back of 
Marybelle’s. This door was as thoroughly 
locked and bolted as the hall door, and with 
just the same kind of fastenings. Nobody 
could have gone out of it, and bolted it behind 
him. Two more doors led to the bathroom 
and to a large clothes closet. We took every¬ 
thing out of the closet, to search for secret 
panels or trap doors, but found nothing of 
the sort. The bathroom was lighted by one 
window, and this, as I have said, was open six 
inches and firmly fastened. It was as impos¬ 
sible to open it from the outside as if it had 
been entirely closed. Moreover, there was no 
ledge or balcony of any sort; only a sheer drop 
of about twenty feet to the ground. The 


THE MOONSTONE RING 49 

other windows in the bedroom were locked 
when I entered the room, and I showed the 
policeman how thoroughly safe the fastenings 
were. 

I am an expert in these matters, and Blair 
was only less so, and we saw at once that no 
intruder came through doors or windows, 
however he may have made entrance. 

I sat down in a corner and began to muse. 
Much as I had wanted a mystery in an inac¬ 
cessible room, I felt I should be glad now to 
get an inkling of a way to look for a solution. 
I had in no degree lost faith in my powers and 
I was certain of ultimate success, but I longed 
for a clue or two. To be sure, there was the 
ring on the gas fixture, and my esteemed fic¬ 
tion hero has often remarked ‘that a bizarre 
clue helps along amazingly. I wanted to 
wonder what he would have deduced from 
that ring, but I wouldn’t pay him so much of 
a compliment. I merely wondered what to 
deduce from it, myself. 

In all our search we saw nothing of the 
pearls, and I felt sure Marybelle had hidden 
them from possible burglars. (Yes, burglars 
were the one possibility in this impossible sit¬ 
uation.) 

Then Weldon found the case that had con¬ 
tained the necklace. Of light blue velvet 
lined with white satin, the dainty affair 


5 o THE MOSS MYSTERY 

seemed to mock at our inquiring glances. It 
was in a dresser drawer, and Weldon was for 
the burglar theory, hot and strong. But a 
pearl necklace always connotes burglary in 
some minds, and I paid no attention to his 
chatter. 

Of course, poor Marybelle herself, had 
been taken away, and we ruthlessly searched 
the bed linen and mattresses for the pearls. 
Under the pillows we found a watch, and a 
small locket containing Herringdean’s pic-, 
ture, but no other jewels. There was a cob¬ 
web of a handkerchief that gave out a faint 
perfume, but my reason failed to find any 
clue in these things. 

Again I sat down and mused. I was glad I 
was not a heavy man, for those foolish little 
willow rockers were better built to hang harps 
(small ones) on than to support a solid de¬ 
tective. But I had selected one of them, in a 
certain corner of the room, which commanded 
a view of the chandelier and of Marybelle’s 
bed, and I proposed to sit in that chair and 
study that room off and on, until I conquered 
that mystery or failed ignominiously. And 
the latter I knew I should not do. 

The coroner went downstairs to maneuver 
his inquest. Soon the others trailed after 
him, and left the room to darkness and to me. 
“Darkness” being a figurative term, for the 


THE MOONSTONE RING 51 

room was bright with December sunlight. 
But the darkness of the mystery, the black 
nothingness of that room, with unlighted gas 
pouring into it for hours, turned on by an un¬ 
seen, unknown, unimaginative hand—unless 
- I found myself thinking of Cissy’s Pol¬ 
tergeist, the Yellow Hand! 


CHAPTER IV 

THE CORONER 

T PRESENTLY left the room and, with a 
few words to the guard stationed at the 
door, went in search of some of the people I 
knew. 

The Wesleys’ door was ajar, and I tapped. 
Frank answered, and asked me in. Poor lit¬ 
tle Plelen was in a sad state. Nervous and 
overwrought, she was crying like a small 
fountain, and Cissy was trying to calm her. 
But Cissy was little better as to nerves, and 
the two were enough to make a man a mis¬ 
ogynist for life. 

But I wanted to ask some questions and I 
tried my powers of tranquillization. Frank 
helped me, and soon a little man-talk inter¬ 
ested the girls and they began to chatter. Skil¬ 
fully guiding the trend of the conversation, 1 
led it to Marybelle’s earlier life, in fact to her 
years with her husband. 

“He was nice enough, Bradley was,” said 
Helen, “but Marybelle led him a dance! She 
—oh, well, you know what she was—a gad¬ 
about, always. Bradley hated to go any¬ 
where, and night after night she would make 


THE CORONER 53 

him go to dinners and dances that he loathed. 
And—well at last he died.” 

“Cause and effect?” I asked. 

“In a way,” Helen said. “You see the man 
wasn’t strong. The doctor said he must go to 
California or Arizona, or some such place. 
Marybelle wouldn’t go with him, and 
wouldn’t let him go without her, so they 
stayed here. Brad got weaker and weaker, 
but Marybelle wouldn’t let up on the gayeties.; 
Why, don’t you remember, Frank, the last 
party here before he died?” 

“Yes,” said Wesley. “Ghastly, it was! 
Bradley was awfully ill, but Marybelle made 
him do stunts for us. Oh, never mind all that 
now. You know, Prall, what a siren she was. 
She could make a man see white as black, if 
she wanted to.” 

“I didn’t know all that,” said Cissy, who 
with wide eyes had been drinking in the tale? 
“I loved Marybelle.” 

“She was lovable,” said Helen, “but she was 
not an admirable character. She——” 
“There, there, dear,” said Wesley, “don’t 
talk that way about her now. Poor Mary¬ 
belle isn’t here to defend herself.” 

“Who was Bradley Moss?” I asked to 
change the subject. 

“He was from New York, I think. You. 
see, Marybelle and her mother lived alone in' 



^4 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

this big house, and her mother died. So 
Marybelle took a companion, Janet Field, you 
know. Sort of companion and secretary both. 
She was from New York. I’m not sure but 
she introduced Moss to Marybelle—think she 
did. Well, in three months or so, Marybelle 
had Brad eating out of her hand, and soon they 
were married. Janet left then—guess Mary¬ 
belle didn’t want her. But when Bradley 
died, Marybelle seemed glad to get Janet 
back, and she’s been here ever since.” 

“And where did the Earl drop from?” 

“Oh, he met Marybelle last summer, some¬ 
where, and she annexed him all up, as fast as 
she could.” 

“And you’re nearest of kin?” I asked of 
Helen. 

“Yes, the house is mine now. It seems so 
strange. Poor Marybelle-” 

“You know she wrote to Curtis she wanted 
to change her will.” 

I don’t know why I sprung that on Helen, 
but for the life of me I couldn’t help it. Any¬ 
way, she went white, and asked how I knew. 
I told her about the letter to Curtis, and then 
Helen went off in her hysterics again, and I 
left the room. 

I went downstairs and found the inquest 
had reached the stage of questioning servants. 
This always bores me, for I never knew it to 



THE CORONER 55 

produce a clue yet, and the evidence they 
would give was all known to me, or would be 
reported. 

I glanced over my reporter ooy’s notes. The 
servants had already told about the first in¬ 
timations of the tragedy, and of entering the 
room. The Earl had given his evidence, also 
Bellamy. Vida was now recalled, because 
the lights were in question. 

“But, no,” she was saying with her ever¬ 
lasting adverbiage—she ascribed as much vir¬ 
tue to ‘‘but” as Touchstone did to “if.” “But, 
no, Madame used little light in her bedroom. 
Never did she desire my help at retiring time. 
She flicked on the dressing-table lights, or, if 
writing letters, the desk lamp. Also, had she 
the bedside light. But the great chandelier 
she used almost never.” 

“You mean the electric fixtures of the great 
chandelier?” 

“But, certainly. The gas was never light¬ 
ed, it could not be, because of its great height. 
Madame was not tall, nor am I, myself. More¬ 
over, the lights hurt her eyes a little. Ma¬ 
dame was near-sighted, and preferred the 
closer lights.” 

More was said here, but gll went to indicate 
that Marybelle had not touched the gas burn¬ 
er either by design or by accident. 

The butler was asked about the gas in the 



5 6 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

house. He knew little, it seemed, but Mrs. 
Blum, the cook, declared that no gas what¬ 
ever was used except in the gas range for 
cooking, and in a water-heater for dish wash¬ 
ing. In all her experience, and she had been 
with Mrs. Moss over three years, never had a 
burner been lighted for illumination in the 
house to her knowledge, 
j “An’ why wud it?” she asked, “with them 
electrics all over the place? And there ain’t 
no leak in the pipes, that there ain’t. I shud 
’a’ smelt it, so. The poor lydy was murdered, 
that’ wot, sir, and uv ye don’t find out who put 
up the job, yer a disgrace to yer callin’, and 
that’s fer certain!” 

It was with some difficulty that Mrs. Blum 
was induced to stop her witnessing, but the 
cessation was achieved, and a few more que¬ 
ries put to Vida. These were concerning the 
pearl necklace, and its probable hiding place. 
If that could be located- 

“But yes!” Vido butted in. “When Ma¬ 
dame had a new jewel, ah, then was there great 
to-do to hide it! But after a few weeks the 
carelessness returned and the gems were laid 
on the dresser or anywhere. Now, of these 
pearls I have no knowledge. But if there was 
a new gift and of a value, rest assured Ma- 
damehidit most cleverly, and it will be indeed 
difficult to find! I have known her to bore a 



THE CORONER 


57 

long hole in a chairleg and in it put her dia¬ 
mond lorgnette chain. But that was when 
the chain was new.” 

“That explains the auger,” said Weldon. 

“What auger?” asked the coroner. 

“There was a long, slender auger in the low¬ 
er dresser drawer, and I wondered at its be¬ 
ing in a lady’s possession.” 
i “But yes,” insisted Vida, “twice Madame 
did bore such holes. In the chair and in the 
window sill.” 

“The window sill!” 

“Yes, right down straight. Then when the 
window is closed and fastened, the hole is hid¬ 
den and the jewels are safe. Ah, but Madame 
was the clever one. Yet, withal, if she had 
new jewels, new hiding places must be invent¬ 
ed, and even so, all windows must be exceed¬ 
ingly locked and barred against burglars, and 
all doors double-bolted. She had so much 
fear.” 

“Perhaps, then the pearls are even now in 
these bored holes. Do you know where the 
holes are?” 

“Yes, but I think Madame conceived some 
new hiding place for her new gift. One that 
I may not find.” 

“Ah, she distrusted you, then?” 

It was a mean and unfounded implication, 
and I rather expected to see Vida resent it. 


5 8 THE MOSS MYSTERY ‘ 

But she did not, she merely replied, “Not 
that so much as that she feared burglars.” 

And then Vida was sent away with Weldon 
and the inspector to look for the pearls in 
Marybelle’s room. 

But they did not find them. 

“Oh, good Lord!” I said to myself. “If 
they’ll get on with the game, I’ll find their 
precious necklace myself when I’ve a little 
spare time. Either it’s stolen or hidden, and 
in either case I’ll find it.” 

You see, even Sherlock Holmes was not 
more confident of his powers than I. But I 
had never fallen down. 

And then I thought, whose was the neck¬ 
lace? Whether available or not, who was 
its owner? And I realized it must be Helen 
Wesley, for she was residuary legatee, and the 
new will had not been made. 

My thoughts went back to my recent con¬ 
fab with the Wesleys. And I had to admit, 
my friends though they were, I did not like 
their attitude on the subject of Marybelle. To 
my mind they had talked about her in a way 
that ought not to be used in connection with 
the dead. But I interrupted my own thoughts 
to listen to Lawyer Curtis. He was telling of ‘ 
the property, saying the house was now Mrs. 
Wesley’s, and much money would also be hers. 

The will gave ten thousand dollars to Janet 


THE CORONER 59 

Field. Two thousand to Vida;' a thousand 
each to Mrs. Blum and the butler, Spears. 
Some other servants had smaller legacies, 
some charities were remembered, and the rest 
was Helen’s. The pearls were not mentioned 
just here, nor was the letter that Marybelle 
had written to Curtis the night before. 

I didn’t altogether approve of the way the 
inquest was conducted, but then, I had never 
attended an inquest that did rouse my admira¬ 
tion and I never hope to. So I sat still and 
listened and thought my own thoughts, by 
turns, expecting every minute to be called on 
for my own testimony. 

Janet Field came next. She told nothing 
I didn’t already know. Said she had been 
with Mrs. Moss about six months at one time, 
and later, a year and a half. She corroborat¬ 
ed Vida’s stories of Marybelle’s fear of burg¬ 
lars and of her tendency to asthma, these two 
things finally reconciling the jury to the lady’s 
unhygienic methods of ventilation. Janet 
spoke in praise of Marybelle, but under fire, 
admitted she was vain and fond of flattery. 
But she quickly added that she had been a gen¬ 
erous and kind friend (of course, Miss Field 
did not consider herself in any way a servant) 
and said frankly, when asked, that she knew 
she was mentioned in the will for ten thou¬ 
sand dollars. 


60 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

“I see your drift,” thought I, as I watched 
the coroner. “Men of your legal caliber al¬ 
ways fix the guilt on the butler or private sec¬ 
retary. Failing these, they suspect the maid¬ 
servant who found the body of her master in 
the library at seven-thirty A.M.” These de¬ 
tails didn’t exactly fit this case, but the work¬ 
ing principle of that sort of coroner is always 
the same. 

j Well, Janet said little more, and Frank 
Wesley, next, was equally repetitory of what 
we all knew. 

Then Cissy came. She was all on edge, 
with excitement and importance. She was 
the one to whom Marybelle had confided the 
secret of the new necklace, though,' boiled 
down, it was merely a whispered word or two 
as the women said good-night on the stair¬ 
landing the night before. 

“And,” Cissy related, “Marybelle said, 
‘Come in my room with me, and see them’; 
then she said, ‘No, not to-night, either. I don’t 
want to show them till to-morrow. But you’ll 
be surprised!’ So that’s why I thought she 
was keeping her door locked, to put up a trick 
on us, of some sort. But now, I know the 
pearls were taken away in the night, and I 
know—Cissy’s voice grew solemn—“I know 
who did it—and who killed her.” 

“You do!” and the coroner turned on her 


THE CORONER 6t 

almost fiercely. “You do, young woman! 
Who then?” 

“ Poltergeist!” Cissy’s voice was a hissing 
whisper and her eyes were wild and weird in 
their expression. “Hush!” She held up her 
hand as the coroner began to speak. “Of 
course you don’t know what that means! I 
didn’t suppose you would. But it is an evil 
^spirit who attacks people and harms them 
iand kills them. The Poltergeist has power of 
materialization or disappearance, at will. 

; And they can steal and maim and kill. Hush, 
I tell you, till I have finished! This Polter¬ 
geist attacked and killed Mrs. Moss’s mother, 
some years ago. But I never dreamed it would 
attack Marybelle! You see, the Poltergeist 
assumes any shape it pleases, and this one was 
a hand, a long, strong, yellow hand, it clutched 
Mrs. Stafford, the mother, by the throat; but 
in Marybelle’s case, it came by night, silently 
in the dark hour, and slowly turned on the 
gas. Then, laughing, in wicked, fiendish 
glee, it disappeared, leaving its victim alone 
to die—to die-” 

Cissy finished and sank down in a little 
crumpled heap, almost unconscious. 

“Take me away,” she moaned, “take me 
away.” 

And it was Frank Wesley who led her 
away, beckoning Vida as they went. 



62 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Coroner Kemble looked helpless, as some 
men do when women faint or fly into hysterics. 
Although they do say women don’t faint now¬ 
adays. But there are other tricks of the sex 
quite as effective, and anyway, feminine evi¬ 
dence is so circumstantial and circumferential 
and circumlocutory, that I don’t blame a cor¬ 
oner much for ignoring it. However, I do 
blame him for enough other things to make 
up for that. 

So the blameworthy Mr. Kemble dragged 
his inquest’s slow length along, after the fash¬ 
ion of the poet’s wounded snake, and what 
with the adjournments and recallings and ar¬ 
guments, I thought it never would have done. 
At last the name of Mr. Owen Prall was 
called. A line of an old nursery jingle 
flashed into my mind: 

The cat, when called, will walk away. 

And I was possessed of a strong desire to 
follow in the cat’s footsteps. But of course, I 
didn’t, and I gave my evidence in my best Fri¬ 
day afternoon declamatory style. 

Now, don’t you think, for a minute, that I 
wasn’t seriously interested in this case. In¬ 
terested, Lord! I was crazy to get at real| 
work on it. But these men in charge saw only ; 
the tragedy, the pathetic death of a beautiful 
woman, and though eager to fasten blame 


THE CORONER 


somewhere, they didn’t know who was to 
blame or what for, and they had no mental 
means of finding out. 

When I detect, I can’t see the human side 
at all, I see only the material facts before me, 
and their significance. When a minister mar¬ 
ries a couple, he may be laying the founda¬ 
tions of a heart-breaking tragedy, but it is 
none of his business. He doesn’t see the hu¬ 
man side of it. If he did, he’d refuse to touch 
off the match. So with me, I longed to get all 
this over, and devote my mind to the problem 
in earnest. 

And at last it was all over but the shouting, 
and the coroner did the shouting. 

He said, by way of summing up, that the 
case was inexplicable. That death occurred 
in a securely fastened room with absolutely 
no means of ingress or egress, therefore it 
could not have been a murder. Consequent¬ 
ly, it must have been accident or suicide. But 
it could not have been accident, for the gas 
was out of reach of the occupant of the room, 
and no way to get up to it could be discerned 
or imagined. Therefore it was not accident 
and must be suicide. But it was clearly 
proved by the evidence of the belongings of, 
the deceased, the clothing, the letters, and 
lastly, by an entry in her diary (which had not 
yet been read) that suicide was utterly out ofi 


6 \ THE MOSS MYSTERY 

the question. Therefore it must have been 
murder. But that could not be, for no mur¬ 
derer could leave the room with the doors 
locked and bolted behind him, and the win¬ 
dows fastened. Therefore- But the cor¬ 

oner had completed his circle and had started 
round again. Helplessly he floundered in 
the bog of his own intelligence. Therefore, 
he concluded, the deceased could not have met 
her death by accident, she could not have com¬ 
mitted suicide, and she could not have been 
murdered. He submitted that it was an in¬ 
explicable mystery. 

It was. The jury returned an open verdict, 
kindly explaining, “and by this we mean that 
we find a sudden and violent death has oc¬ 
curred, and we do not find the cause proved.” 

Legal phrases often show a fine sense of 
terminology. That could not have been bet¬ 
ter worded. And now the farce was over and 
the sudden and violent death had occurred 
and I was at liberty to find the cause proved. 


CHAPTER Y 

A BLIND ALLEY 

g ARROWS VILLE, naturally, was in *a 
ferment over the matter. From the Old¬ 
est Resident to the Newest Rich, the subject 
was paramount, discussions were held, sug¬ 
gestions were made and enough solutions of¬ 
fered to keep an ordinary detective sleuthing 
for a year. 

I listened to none of them. I simply took 
possession of Marybelle’s room and set to 
work. 

You see, the fact that I can solve a problem 
doesn’t necessarily mean that I can solve it 
quickly or easily. It simply means that I 
finally arrive. I try, of course, to get there 
by the nearest route, but it may be that the 
longest way round is the surest way home. 

The Wesleys fell easily into possession of 
their new estate. Too easily, some thought, 
for I was treated to many opinions and insinu¬ 
ations by the townspeople. Not to be ob¬ 
scure, I may as well say that not a few opined 
that the two Wesleys were in some mysterious 
way responsible for the death of Marybelle, 
65 


66 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

the motive being a speedy inheritance of her 
wealth. 

But I didn’t think this, though I was look¬ 
ing into the matter, and I willingly accepted 
the Wesleys’ invitation to stay on after the 
funeral and see what I could discover. This 
invitation of theirs was in their favor, but if 
they were clever enough to bring about that 
mysterious murder, they were clever enough 
to pull the wool over my eyes. 

I say murder, for I gave up all idea of sui¬ 
cide (for the dozenth time) after reading 
Marybelle’s diary. The pathetic entry, writ¬ 
ten the night of her death, was enough proof 
for me. It said, in part: 

To-night, dear Journal, is the happiest of ray life. I have 
announced my ' engagement to Geoffrey, and everybody 
seemed so pleased. Even Helen was very sweet about it, 
though I told her I should alter my will. Oh, I am so glad 
Geoff is an Earl I A title has always been my heart’s dear¬ 
est desire. I shall be Countess of Herringdean! How dif¬ 
ferent from being merely the wife of Bradley Moss. And 
the two men are as different as day and night. Brad was 
nice, in a way, but so slow and dull. Of course, he was ill, 
poor fellow, but I wasn’t, and I wanted life and happiness. 
Well, I shall have it now. And I have a marvelous string 
of pearls. I shall exhibit it tomorrow, and how the girls 
will envy me. Cissy and Janet will fairly turn green! 
Tomorrow I must send notices of the engagement to the 
New York papers. I hope they will send up reporters. 
Now, dear Journal, my only confidant, I must go to sleep, 
for tomorrow morning I ride with Geoffrey and I must look 
my best. 

The tenor of this entry did not show a fine 
nature, I admit, but we never ascribed high¬ 
mindedness to Marybelle. She was one of 


A BLIND ALLEY 67 

Fortune’s spoiled children, and had a knack of 
getting what she wanted, by her own power of 
persuasion. But none the less, she had been 
most foully murdered, and the villain must be 
brought to justice. Also, I had my case. A 
murder—-it was a murder—mysteriously com¬ 
mitted in an inaccessible room—it was inac¬ 
cessible—and no clue to work from! 

I took possession of Marybelle’s room. I 
mean I occupied it, night and day, for I felt 
that only thus could I succeed in my task. I 
wasn’t in it every minute, of course, but many 
daylight hours I sat there, pondering. I had 
chosen a chair in the front window, and I 
stuck to it, as it was a seat,practically com¬ 
manding the whole room. Remember the 
house faced north. The room was the north¬ 
east one, and back of it, the. southeast corner 
of the house, was the Wesleys’ room. The 
north and east sides of Marybelle’s room had 
two windows each, and the other side, the west 
side, was next the hall. The bath was be¬ 
tween the room and the Wesleys’ room, as was 
also the large clothes closet. 

There also was a corresponding bath, next 
back of Marybelle’s, which opened into the 
Wesleys’ bedroom. Thus, the two bathroom^ 
were side by side. But though I hung out my 
bathroom window for hours at a time, and out 
of the Wesleys’ for, say, half-hours at a time, 


68 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

I couldn’t for the life of me see how Frank 
could have climbed out of one and in at the 
other, when there was no ledge of any sort. 
The windows were eight feet apart, and the 
one in Marybelle’s bathroom fastened with a 
six-inch opening. Only a monkey could have 
done it. Stay, a monkey! The Murders in 
the Rue Morgue! But Wesley didn’t possess 
a trained ape or chimpanzee, and anyway, 
there was nothing for him to climb up on. A 
monkey can scramble pretty nimbly, but he 
can’t be trained to spring from the floor to a 
chandelier, especially when the room is pitch 
dark! And besides, I didn’t suspect old 
Frank. I knew him pretty well, and though 
he and Helen did seem to enjoy their good for¬ 
tune, and didn’t seem to mourn Marybelle 
overmuch, yet I discarded the monkey idea 
as just about as impossible as any other theory. 

The nutshell into which I put my final tab¬ 
ulation was simply this: 

1. The gas was turned on. 

2. Marybelle couldn’t have turned it on. 

3. Nobody else could have turned it on. 

These seem to be contradictory facts. But 

there are no contradictory facts. Very well, 
then. Number one is a fact, and either two 
or three is not a fact. I am sure number two 
is a fact. Anyway, it is far more likely to be 
than number three, if only for the reason that 


A BLIND ALLEY 69 

there was but one Marybelle and millions of 
bodies else. 

So, as a working hypothesis, I took the fact, 
the fact, mind you, that somebody else did 
turn on that gas, and I settled down to find out 
that somebody’s name. 

My thinking chair, now a comfortable arm¬ 
chair instead of one of the wicker fol-de-rols, 
was in the northwest corner of the room, thus 
commanding the door from the hall, as well as 
all the other doors and windows of the room. 
I left the hall door ajar, always, and encour¬ 
aged any one who cared to, to come in and dis¬ 
cuss the matter with me at any time. 

Cissy Carreau, with her hysterics and her 
Poltergeist had gone home, and I was glad of 
it. Bellamy had gone, too, but the Earl still 
lingered and Janet Field was to stay a short 
time longer. Most of the servants had given 
notice, some indeed had left, but there were 
enough to look after us comfortably and the 
house was run pretty much as when Mary¬ 
belle was there. 

“I’m going to hunt for the pearls,” said 
Helen, coming in one morning. 

“Very well,” I returned, a little absently. 
I was used to her puttering about, poking into 
cracks and crevices, climbing to the tops of 
wardrobes or bureaus, and rummaging dresser 
drawers that had been gone through scores of 


7 o THE MOSS MYSTERY 

times. But, she argued, the things were all 
hers, and she had a right to rummage all she 
wished. The pearls were hers, too, she said, 
but it seemed to me the Earl didn’t altogether 
like that, and I imagined he was prolonging 
his stay in hope of finding the pearls and 
claiming them himself. 

“You know, Helen,” I said, at last, as she 
was excavating a broad window seat just be¬ 
hind me, and throwing things all about, 
“when I get around to it, I’ll find those pearls 
for you.” 

“Do you know where they are?” 

“I think so. Or rather, I think it will come 
to me where they are, when I can put my mind 
on it. At present, I’m busy.” 

“You’re bumptious and conceited,” she re¬ 
turned, sitting on the floor and looking up at 
me, “but if you think you can find them, I 
think you ought to do it at once. How do 
you know the burglar didn’t take them?” 

“What burglar?” 

“The one who killed Marybelle, of course.” 

“Killed her in order to steal the pearls?” 

“Of course. What other motive could any¬ 
body have had for murder?” 

“Inheritance,” I said, looking at her 
squarely. 

“Inheritance? From Marybelle? Oh, do 
you mean Vida?” 


A BLIND ALLEY 71 

“Vida! Kill her mistress for two thousand 
dollars. Oh, she doesn’t seem that sort. Vida 
is truly distressed at Marybelle’s death.” 

“But who, then? Janet? Spears?” 

“Nonsense! Who benefited most by the 
will?” 

“Why, me and Frank. You don’t mean us, 
do you?” 

Helen didn’t show indignation so much as 
a nervous hilarity. It was a strained little 
laugh she gave, and she said quickly, “Don’t 
talk nonsense! Of course, if it was murder, 
nobody in the house did it.” 

“But nobody out of the house could have 
done it.” 

“Then we must come back to Cissy’s ghost. 
Mr. Prall, did you ever think that Cissy might 
have done it? Oh, I don’t mean of her own 
volition, but under influence—hypnotism or 
something, at the hands of these occult people 
she has dealings with.” 

“Has dealings with?” I repeated, blankly. 
I find these blank repetitions useful in draw¬ 
ing people on. 

“Yes; you know she’s always going to 
seances and ‘sittings’ as they call them. And 
the mediums fool her, I know.” 

“Fool her?” 

“Yes. She has lots of money, and they get 
large sums away from her-” 


72 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

“What are her people thinking of!” 

“She hasn’t any people but her father, and 
he’s always off skylarking. Cissy does as she 
likes. Well, suppose these mediums hypno¬ 
tized Cissy to go into Marybelle’s room and 
steal the pearls and turn on the gas—and 
Cissy never knowing she did it at all!” 

“But how did she get into Marybelle’s 
room?” 

“Suppose she tapped at the door, say at 
three or four o’clock; and Marybelle let her 
in. x4nd suppose she managed to steal the 
pearls and turn on the gas without Mary¬ 
belle’s knowing it-” 

“But if Cissy were hypnotized, Marybelle 
would know it.” 

“Oh, well, I don’t know about the details. 
You’re the one to find those out. But suppose, 
then, that Marybelle was asleep when Cissy 
went in, and Cissy turned on the gas-” 

“How did she reach it?” 

“Well,” and Helen looked wise, “there’s a 
crook-handled umbrella in the closet.” 

“Let me see it!” I demanded. 

Helen went to the closet and produced an 
umbrella with the frequently seen J-shaped 
handle. 

“Turn on the gas with that,” I directed. 

But try as she would, Helen couldn’t do it. 
The crook bent around too far. Had it been 



A BLIND ALLEY 73 

shaped like a letter L it might have worked, 
but not as it was. 

“Nothing doing,” I said; “but is there an 
L-shaped umbrella handle in the house?” 

Thorough search revealed one in the Earl’s 
room, but it was a little too absurd to imagine 
him killing his own sweetheart! 

“Unless he wanted the pearls back again,”, 
suggested Helen. 

“Wanted fiddlesticks!” I exclaimed. “If 
he regretted his gift, he could have retrieved 
it without crime!” 

“I suppose so,” said Helen. And sighing 
in a futile fashion, she went away. 

Now you see why I liked to talk about the 
case. It gave me no real help, but it gave me 
new ideas, odd hints, that might be of value. 
Cissy hypnotized! Gas turned on by a crook- 
handled umbrella! At least these things must 
go into my tabulated records. They did. 

Then the Earl strolled in. I asked him 
about the umbrella idea, and he stroked his 
mustache thoughtfully. Pulled at it, rather, 
the way Englishmen do, in fiction and out. 
Fairly jerked at it, in fact, as he said, “Too 
clever by half for mere imagination! Has 
Mrs. Wesley a crook-handled umbrella' or 
did she borrow mine?” 

Here was a moil! Harringdean suspected 
Helen Wesley of the method Helen had at- 


74 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

tributed to Cissy! Were all the inmates of 
the household ready to fly at each other’s 
throats? I wondered if anybody suspected 
me. My room was directly over Marybelle’s! 

Well, it seemed the Earl did suspect the two 
Wesleys. He was nice about it, but he con¬ 
fided to me that he thought it must be they, 
for they were so glad to get the house and the 
money. Also, he felt sure they had secreted 
the pearls, for otherwise they would have 
been found ere this. He knew, he said, that 
Marybelle couldn’t have hidden them in any 
way which would have prevented their being 
found after such desperate search. 

I was tempted to stop then and there and 
hunt up those pearls. But I was on a glim¬ 
mer of a hint of a shadow of a clue, and I 
didn’t want to interrupt myself. 

Suppose, I thought, somebody had turned 
off the gas entirely at the main in the cellar. 
And suppose the same person had secretly— 
say, in the afternoon—opened the jet in Mary¬ 
belle’s room. And then, suppose, late at 
night, or, rather, early in the morning-—for 
the doctor had said the gas had been turned 
on not later than four o’clock—the same fiend 
in human shape had crept down cellar and 
turned on the main again. It would escape 
nowhere else but at that one burnfer. I went 
to see about this. 


A BLIND ALLEY 75 

“It was this way, sir,” Mrs. Blum respond¬ 
ed to my discreet questioning; “I cooked all 
the dinner on the gas range, except the roast. 
Them ovens is good enough for a cheefe, but 
the coal range for boilin’ er steamin’ is—oh, 
lawks! So I uses the gas range alius, and 
most satusfactry it is, yus, sir.” 

“But you turned it off after dinner?” I in¬ 
quired eagerly. 

“I did that, sir.” 

“And no gas was used, of course, during the 
evening or night.” 

“Well v wasn’t there just! ’Twas that cold, 
sir, that us servantses nigh froze. And lots 
of us, me and Vida, anyway, and Spears, that 
I know of, we had our snug little gas stoves 
a-goin’ in our bedrooms.” 

“And these were turned off, say, about mid¬ 
night?” 

“Not mine, sir. I kep’ that thing trun on 
full all night long. An’ in the mornin’ my 
room was warm as a toast! It’s some ex¬ 
pense, yes, sir, but Mis’ Moss, the dear lydy, 
she never begridged us a mossel o’ heat.” 

I left her, my bubble burst, my air-castle 
in ruins! If the gas burned in her room all 
night, there was no chance for the theory I 
had formed. I thought perhaps the 'woman 
lied; but other servants corroborated the tale, 
so I gave up that idea. 


CHAPTER VI 

SIX SIDES TO A ROOM 

NABASHED, undismayed, and even un- 



^ ruffled, I went back to my thinking chair. 
To say I pondered, faintly expresses it. I 
thought deeply, I cogitated, I meditated, I 
speculated, I ruminated, I did all the things 
Peter Mark Roget could suggest or recom¬ 
mend. I even cudgeled my brains, ransacked 
my mind and fell into a brown study. 

Oh, yes, I know Friend Holmes would have 
looked at the tipless gas burner and at once 
have given his versatile portrait of the mur¬ 
derer as a cross-eyed man, eight feet high, 
smoking a Trichinopoli cigar. But, the. ci¬ 
gar aroma was lost in the gas fumes, no man is 
eight feet high, and cross-eyedness had noth¬ 
ing to do with the case. 

But there was one clue, good enough for 
even that ’stute fish, Sherlock. That was the 
moonstone ring. Shades of Wilkie Collins! 
I must deduce something from that ring or 
write myself down a very long-eared donkey. 
First, then, why was the ring on the gas burn¬ 
er? Not for safekeeping or to hide it from 


SIX SIDES TO A ROOM 77 

burglars. The ring was not valuable; the 
moonstone is but a semi-precious gem, some¬ 
thing less than semi, in my estimation; and 
though it was well set, it was not in finely 
wrought gold or faceted platinum. 

But it might have been of a special personal 
value to Marybelle. I must find out. I 
went to Helen Wesley first. She said she did 
not think she had ever seen the ring before. 
However, that was not strange, as she saw 
Marybelle only once a year or so, and it was 
not a dinner ring. Doubtless she had had it 
as a girl; it was a schoolgirl looking affair, 
she thought. 

Then I tackled the Earl. No, he had not 
given Marybelle that ring. He had never 
seen it until at the inquest. By the way, he 
had given her an emerald engagement ring. 
Had that been cared for? 

“Good gracious,” I exclaimed, pettishly, 
“why don’t you look after these jewelry mat¬ 
ters? If it wasn’t buried with her, doubtless 
Mrs. Wesley has it.” 

“Probably,” sighed the Earl. He seemed 
resigned to losing all his interests in such prop¬ 
erties, and to be sure, they did not belong to 
him. Marybelle’s possessions were now Hel¬ 
en’s and there was an end on’t. 

I met Janet Field in the hall and asked her 
about the moonstone ring. 


78 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

“I never saw Marybelle wear it,” she said, 
thoughtfully. “But, of course, she had jew¬ 
elry and trinkets that I didn’t know of; why 
don’t you ask Vida?” 

I did, and the maid declared it was not her 
mistress’s ring at all. 

“But, no!” she exclaimed, “I am pos’tive— 
ah, but pos’tive! Madame never owned that 
ring! I should have known it, so. All Ma- 
dame’s jewels I know. I clean them, I arrange 
them, and I help her sometimes to hide them. 
But that bauble? No, never was it Ma- 
dame’s.” 

“But, Vida, how could it possibly get on the 
ga-s fixture? Who except a lunatic would 
climb up and put it there?’” 

Vida shuddered. “It was the w’at you call? 
the polterre ghaist! Yes, but that is who it 
was! Miss Carreau, she is right! No hu¬ 
man hand wore that ring! No human hand 
put it on the high gas! It was the hand of 
the evil spirit, the wicked ghaist. He left 
his ring on the gas! His hand turned the jet, 
from the finger of that hand came the ring, 
the moonstone ring—as a token—as a sign 

--” With a scream, Vida flung up her 

hands and ran away. 

“H’m,” thought I to myself, as. I returned 
to my pondering; “more hysterical women! 
More Poltergeist! I wish I did believe in 


SIX SIDES TO A ROOM 


79 

the supernatural! It would work out so beau¬ 
tifully. The yellow hand—the Hand of Re¬ 
venge, Cissy called it—turning on the death¬ 
dealing gas and then leaving a ring from its 
finger as a sign manual. Sign manual is 
good!” I smiled at my own unintentional 
bon mot . 

“What did Vida say?” asked Janet Field, 
stopping at my door, a few moments later. 

“Come in,” I said. “Sit down.” She did, 
and I told her what the maid had said, and 
also how I wished I could feel that the prob¬ 
lem was thus solved. 

“A sign manual,” she repeated as I adroitly 
brought in my clever phrase. “Doesn’t that 
mean the sign of the hand?” 

“In a way, yes. And if the hand of revenge 
brought about Marybelle’s death, the ring 
was left in evidence.” 

“How you talk!” Janet shuddered. “Why 
don’t you drop that ghost foolishness and find 
out something real?” 

“Well, listen, then, while I sum up. As I 
make it, five theories may be tenable. Acci¬ 
dent, suicide-” 

“Oh, she never-” 

“Wait a minute, please. Five theories, I 
said. Accident, suicide, murder, Poltergeist, 
and hypnotism. The first we all agree is im¬ 
possible. The second, none of us believes 


8o 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


after reading her letters and .Diary. Polter¬ 
geist is rubbish, isn’t it?” 

“I suppose so.” 

“Hypnotism equally so?” 

“I don’t kAow. Hypnotism is a very real 
thing.” 

“Yes, but granted your hypnotized murder¬ 
er, how could he get in?” 

“True enough, but how could an unhypno¬ 
tized murderer get in?” 

“I don’t know. That is my problem. But 
I contend it is easier for a clever, wide-awake 
villain to pass through the eye of a needle 
than an unconscious sleepwalker. By the 
way, did Marybelle ever walk in her 
sleep?” 

“Not that I know of. Would that open up 
a new theory?” 

“It might. Though I don’t see how she 
could sleepwalk in any way to reach that 
chandelier.” 

“Nor I.” 

“Look here, Miss Field—” Janet was a 
good listener—“suppose the murderer was 
concealed in the room, say, from dusk on, or 
from dinner time on-” 

“Yes,” prompted Janet, eagerly waiting. 

“And suppose he stayed concealed-- 

But would Marybelle hunt for burglars?” 

“No, she wasn’t that sort. And she was a 


SIX SIDES TO A ROOM 81 

bit near-sighted, you know. She wouldn’t see 
your intruder. Go on.” 

“Well, and suppose, at four o’clock he, be¬ 
ing a very tall man, or having a crooked um¬ 
brella or other implement, turned on the gas 
and softly got away-” 

“Yes?” 

“Oh I don’t know how he locked the door 
behind him, any more than you do! Do stop 
looking triumphant over that point! Nobody 
knows how he locked the door behind him! 
But I’m going to find out!” 

“Perhaps you will, Mr. Prall,” and Janet 
looked reproved. “But I think-” 

“What do you think?” I demanded, as she 
hesitated. 

“I am not superstitious,” she went on slowly, 
“but I can see no possible solution but the— 
what was the phrase—the Hand of Revenge.” 

She went away, and I devoted fully ten 
precious minutes to consideration of the su¬ 
pernatural as a death-dealing instrument. 
And I couldn’t make myself believe in it, so 
I gave it up. I came back to thoughts of the 
practical and the material. I pondered even 
more deeply than before. I had a genius for 
detection. Was my genius going to,fail me? 
No, I knew it was not! But when, oh, when 
•would it get to burning? 

I remembered that Lowell declared that 


8a THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Poe had two of the prime qualities of genius! 
“A faculty of vigorous yet minute analysis and 
a wonderful fecundity of imagination.” 

H’m! My genius should show those two 
qualities also. Moreover, it should begin to 
exhibit them right away! 

I looked around the room with a gaze of 
vigorous yet minute analysis. I divided it 
into its six sides. I mean, the ceiling, floor 
and four walls. I reconstructed the scenes 
of that night. With wonderful fecundity of 
imagination, I saw Marybelle, happily writ¬ 
ing her letters, confiding to her diary, laying 
out her riding-habit for next day, hiding her 
pearl necklace, locking and bolting doors and 
windows, and finally switching off the electric 
lights and lying down with a smiling face and 
anticipation of happy dreams. 

And then, in through one of those six sidSs 
came the murderer, who turned on the fateful 
gas, and went away as he had come. Was it 
through floor, ceiling, or one of the four 
walls? Two walls had doors, two had win¬ 
dows; floor and ceiling had no apertures. Yet 
through one of the six sides of the cube the 
murderer had entered, and I should discover 
which. My problem was here. I fairly* 
hugged it to my breast. There was no en¬ 
trance, yet entrance was made. There was 
no clue, yet clue should be found. Some hu- 


SIX SIDES TO A ROOM 83 

;tnan hand had turned on that gas. Human? 
Yes, I believed it human; no ghost had wished 
harm to our Marybelle. 

Another observation of Lowell’s came to 
my mind. 

. “Genius finds its expression in the establish¬ 
ment of a perfect mutual understanding be¬ 
tween the worker and his material.” 

Ah! So? My material lay within those 
six plane surfaces. Between it and myself I 
cmust establish a perfect mutual understand¬ 
ing. 

I did. 


CHAPTER VII 

THE MISSING NECKLACE 
O PLUCK out the heart of a mystery is 



a direct statement in form. But in its 
accomplishment, how indirect! How com¬ 
plicated and intricate. It is not done with the 
simplicity of plucking a water lily from its 
home pond, rather it is like getting at the in¬ 
nermost one of those Chinese carved balls, re¬ 
ferred to by Tennyson as, “Laborious Orient 
ivory, sphere in sphere.” And since it could 
only be come at by a perfect mutual under¬ 
standing between me and my material, I must 
get about establishing said understanding at 


once. 


The best way, I opined, was to ask questions 
of my material. Being a man of few words, 
I concluded to ask but three. Like the three 
wishes of fairy-tale lore, the answers to my 
queries would be all I wished or needed. If 
my material would tell me truly these things: 
How? Why? And Who? the mystery would 
be a thing of the past. So, with confidence, I 
inquired of my material as to the method, the 
motive and the criminal, and as mutual un- 


THE MISSING NECKLACE 85 

derstanding became perfected, the answers 
were forthcoming. 

My material was the room I was in. The 
six sides of that cube and their contents must 
answer my three questions. 

Practically living in that room, as I did, 
had given me an added impetus in my work. 
Every dainty belonging of Marybelle’s, every 
cherished souvenir, every personal possession, 
from the furs in her wardrobe to the soap in 
her bathroom, were so many mute appeals for 
vengeance on the wretch who had with one 
turn of his hand blotted out that young life. 
The Hand of Fate, indeed! A sad fate for a 
prospective bride, for one who stood with 
open hands, welcoming a new life. 

I had heard more or less, of late, about 
Marybelle’s selfishness, about her heartless 
treatment of Bradley Moss, and his untimely 
death from tuberculosis; but I had never 
known the man; and I had known Marybelle, 
beautiful, seductive Marybelle. 

I was determined to avenge her death. And 
this, with my interest in my perfect mystery 
problem, gave me an energy that must lead to 
success. 

The police detectives were still working on 
the case, but half-heartedly and tied-handedly. 
They had no material with which to have a 
perfect mutual understanding; or, rather. 


86 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

what lay before, their eyes they couldn’t see as 
material. But, dissatisfied with the coroner’s 
verdict, they were still puttering around the 
mystery. 

“I think I have it,” said Weldon, coming 
in to see me, and dropping into a chair, with 
the intelligent aspect of a feeble-minded 
jellyfish. “It was that little Carreau girl. 
I’ve suspected her from the first, because she 
is the only one who knew that Mrs. Moss had 
the new pearl necklace.” 

“Miss Carreau!” 

“Yes. And she trumped up her ghost sto¬ 
ries to cover her own crime, and threw hyster¬ 
ics whenever she was questioned, to avoid an¬ 
swering.” 

“Um. And how did she* reach the gas?”- 

“With an umbrella or cane or broomstick 
or any such thing. Maybe she had a yard¬ 
stick or-” 

“Or a tape measure!” I exploded. I did 
hate to have poor little innocent Cissy ac¬ 
cused. “And just how did Miss Carreau en¬ 
ter the room and also make exit, leaving the 
place barricaded as if for a siege?” 

“That I haven’t quite worked out yet.” 

“Well, go and get to work on it, and don’t 
come to bother me again until you do. Un¬ 
derstand, Mr. Weldon, this is a perfect mys¬ 
tery problem. Generally, the criminal leaves 


THE MISSING NECKLACE 87 

some overlooked clue, some forgotten precau* 
tion, but in this instance, there isn’t a trace. 
As a problem, it has no flaw. I am busy solv¬ 
ing it. And I must ask you to do your solv¬ 
ing to yourself. First must be discovered 
how the murderer got into and out of the 
room. Until you know that, for a certainty, 
you have made no progress, and any time I 
spend with you is wasted.” 

I hated to score the poor fellow so, but he 
was, it seemed, a jellyfish with an armadillo’s 
skin, for he only said, “I suppose so, Mr. 
Prall,” and went away. 

I began on my material. The ceiling first; 
I went over it inch by inch, but found nothing 
but what any well-conducted ceiling would 
show. There was no torn paper or broken 
plaster. No cracks or scalings in its kalso- 
mined surface. The ornate plaster center- 
piece from which the chandelier hung was in¬ 
tact and perfect. The chandelier itself, an 
elaborate affair, had eight brackets made of 
brass tubing bent in curlicued pattern and 
eight gas burners with the usual ground glass 
globes. The electric fixtures had been added 
below these burners and hung down, with pink 
shades over their bulbs. 

As the room above was the one I had occu¬ 
pied on the night of the tragedy, I had no sus¬ 
picion of a trapdoor to that, and indeed there 



88 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

was no chance of such a thing. So the ceiling 
was dismissed from my mind as affording pos¬ 
sible entrance to the intruder. 

The floor, next, proved equally innocent. 
1 looked under the rugs, I moved all the fur¬ 
niture, and I tapped around the mopboard, 
till I was sure nobody, not even a mouse, could 
have come up through the floor. 

Each wall I took separately, and found no 
openings or apertures even the tiniest, save the 
doors and windows. There was no ventilator 
or transom. With the aid of the step-ladder I, 
scanned the tops of the windows and doors, 
the curtain poles and fixtures, and the entire 
chandelier. There was nothing, nothing in 
the least indicative of recent disturbance or 
suggestive of a way to look for the truth. 

Then I attacked the doors and windows 
themselves. I thought of the murderer saw¬ 
ing out and replacing a door panel. No, I 
don’t mean that he sawed it at the time, but 
suppose he had sawed it out the day before 
and replaced it with temporary tacks. Then, 
at the moment, he had removed the panel, un¬ 
locked and unbolted the door, entered, turned 
on the gas by means of an ordinary lighter, 
and, going softly out, relocked the door as he 
had opened it, and replaced the panel. 

A fine theory, but both doprs disproved it. 
They were so positively as they had been for 



THE MISSING NECKLACE 89 

years that it was clear to be seen nobody had 
used that dodge. They were of pine or some 
such wood, stained and grained to represent 
black walnut. Our forefathers had placed 
strong reliance on the credulity of their fel¬ 
low men. Each stained his own doors, assum¬ 
ing his neighbors would think them the real 
thing, knowing full well that the neighbors 
also stained their own. 

I had a similar theory ready for the win¬ 
dows. How about entering one of those by 
means of a long ladder, and by the method of 
removing a pane of glass and afterward re¬ 
placing it with putty?' But the windows un¬ 
derstood me and denied this, proving it by 
their untouched and adamant putty. Hard as 
concrete and weather-beaten, the putty of 
every pane had not been disturbed since a 
glazier’s fingers left it many years ago. This 
was indisputable, I saw at once, so I raised 
no dispute with that bit of material. 

And so I proceeded. I was in no haste. 
Rather, I was spinning out this solving pro¬ 
cess as a child spins out the enjoyment of his 
ice cream, making it last as long as possible. 
But I was thorough. Aye, more than thor¬ 
ough. I was meticulous. I looked behind 
every picture on the walls, every mirror, and 
every bit of foolish artcraft that conscien¬ 
tiously covered its own 7 allotted portion of # 


9 o THE MOSS MYSTERY 

wallpaper. The wallpaper was, to my mind, 
hideous. It was of recent date, thus jarring 
with woodwork and window panes. The de¬ 
sign was gay hued parrots disporting in tropi¬ 
cal foliage on a dark background. But I 
looked over every parrot and every burst of 
orchid-like bloom, without getting a breath 
of inspiration. The furniture I nearly tore 
apart in my earnestness of search. As I had 
been told, Marybelle had ingeniously bored 
long auger holes in some chair legs, and in one 
desk leg, stopping them with ordinary corks, 
stained dark. What a woman! The jewels she 
had hidden in these receptacles had been taken 
away,by Helen,probably; but I cared naught. 
They would be of no help to me. 

I looked for trick locks on doors or win¬ 
dows. There were none. I looked up the 
chimney. It was too small for navigation; 
also it was full of soot, and the room had been 
found immaculately clean. No one had en¬ 
tered that way. Of course, I subjected the 
bathroom to the same processes as the bed¬ 
room. I went over the floor on my hands and 
knees. I went along the walls, my nose not 
an inch from the parrots and magnolias. I 
gazed at the ceiling as raptly as ever a star¬ 
gazer looked heavenward, and I stared at that 
chandelier for hours at a time. 

I did not blame my material for lack of re- 


THE MISSING NECKLACE 91 

suits. No, I knew that the perfect under¬ 
standing was already theirs, and if not yet 
quite mutual, it soon would be. 

Being in a hunting mood, I determined to 
look for the pearls. There were few places 
to look, for Helen had riddled the place with 
her probing search. I ignored obvious plac¬ 
es and quested for the obscure. 

I bethought me of the delightful old story 
of the lost horse. A country lad found him, 
after long search had failed. “How did you 
find him?” they asked. And the yokel re¬ 
plied, “Why, I thought if I was a horse, where 
would I go? And I went there, and he had.” 

That was the method I chose to find the 
necklace. I thought, if I were Marybelle, 
where would I put it? 

And as I thought, so far as possible, with 
her mind, I seemed to be impelled to secrete 
it somewhere in or near the bed. But the 
bedclothes had been taken away and others 
substituted. Still, there were the mattresses. 
I deduced a hiding place in one of these and 
scrutinized the edges for a place that might 
have been ripped and re-sewn. There were 
none. Now, pearls couldn’t be introduced 
into a mattress without some such procedure, 
so I decided against it. There were the pil¬ 
lows, but these, too, showed only their ori¬ 
ginal seams. 


92 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Ah, the lingerie pillows! There were half 
a dozen or more of the daintiest of boudoir 
pillows, the slips being of fine embroidery or 
lace or both, and the pillows being covered 
with rose-colored satin. 

Eagerly I examined the edges of the satin 
pillows. Though far from being what is 
known as a Miss Nancy, I did know that such 
pillows are made by being stitched nearly all 
the way round, and sewn for a few inches, 
after being filled with down. 

My somewhat domestic knowledge stood 
me in good stead. One pillow, after looking 
at several, I found had been ripped and hast¬ 
ily resown. I felt pinchingly, and found a 
hard bunch within, which I knew at once was 
the necklace. I took the pillow to Helen and 
let her rip it out. She cried out with delight, 
exclaiming, “What a place to hide them! 
And isn’t that just like Marybelle!” 

It was a fine string of pearls, not worth a 
king’s ransom, but worth enough to cheer the 
heart of any woman; and Helen was duly 
elated. 

“How did you find them?” she asked me, 
her eyes glued to the lustrous gems. 

“Oh, I just went there, and she had,” I re¬ 
plied, carelessly. “Now I’m going to find the 
murderer.” 

I left Helen resewing the satin pillow, for 


THE MISSING NECKLACE 93 

she was a housewifely sort, and returned to my 
post. 

I had found the pearls by sheer mental proc¬ 
ess, so I kept at that exercise. I thought and 
thought until—well, I wondered if I’d be 
like the Little Shmall Rid Hin. You know, 
“she thaught and thaught till she became so 
thin, that there was nawthin’ left of her but 
jist her bones and shkin.” 

I thought of a murderer entering at dusk, 
and remaining hidden in wardrobe or closet 
—for poor Marybelle was so near-sighted— 
until four o’clock, turning on the gas, and 
then—well, making an exit during the com¬ 
motion that followed the discovery of the tra¬ 
gedy. Could it have been? But reason told 
me, no. There were too many of us at or near 
the door for any stranger to escape unnoticed. 
But if not a stranger? Suppose—well, say, 
one of the household servants had done this, 
and in the excitement had stepped from his 
hiding place and mingled with the rest of us 

No. Any servant absent from duty all 
night would have been noticed and reported. 
Any guest, then? Cissy? She could have 
gone in before Marybelle retired, could have 
pretended to go out, but really have hidden, 
and stayed there; then when we raised the 
alarm, she might have- Bah, what rub- 


94 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

bish! Little Cissy in there all those long 
hours! Any one who had done anything like 
that would have died of the gas, too! Truly, 
I was getting in my dotage! 

I concluded I had cobwebs on the brain, and 
started out for a walk in the cold, crisp air, 
hoping the winter winds would blow them 
all away. I went to the police and asked the 
loan of the ring that had been found on the 
gas burner. Having but one real dressy clue, 
I determined to give it its fair share of atten¬ 
tion. 

I got the ring, the police having a sort of 
grudging admiration for me, not unmixed 
with a certain satisfaction in my lack of 
achievement so far. 

“It is circumstantial evidence,” Blair said 
impressively, “and you can’t hang a man on 
circumstantial evidence, remember.” 

The ring wasn’t a circumstance to my de¬ 
tective talent, and I had no man to hang any¬ 
way, so I gave him no reply but a civil good- 
day, and went my way. 


CHAPTER VIII 

FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT 

T) ACK home again, aye, even on the way 
^ home, I studied the ring. It told me 
nothing, save its mere surface facts. It was 
a lady’s ring. That is, its size made it appear 
so, and its general timidity of aspect. Surely 
no man would wear that bauble, even on his 
little finger. Well, that didn’t prove a lady 
had murdered Marybelle. Besides, that ring 
might have been on that burner for years. 
Maybe Marybelle’s mother had put it there 
for some absurd reason. Maybe the long 
yellow hand, that figured in Marybelle’s tale 
of her mother’s nightmare (though I really 
believed that creeping hand was merely the 
figment of a bad dream), had put the ring on 
the gas, and perhaps had returned for its for¬ 
gotten property and accidentally turned on 
the jet. 

This theory was so ingenious that I repeat¬ 
ed it to Janet Field, she being the first listener 
I found on my return to the house. 

“Oh, don’t,” she said, shuddering. “Mr. 
Prall, when you are really a clever detective, 
95 


96 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

why do you stoop to that unpleasant sort of 

foolery? 5 ’ 

“But look at the ring,” I said. “It’s not such 
a one as Marybelle would own, is it now?” 

“I don’t want to touch it,” she said, backing 
off. “It seems to me haunted!” 

But Herringdean came along then, and he 
took the ring and examined it. 

“Oligoclase,” he said, as he returned it. 

“Abracadabra—Erin go bragh,” I returned 
politely, not wishing to be outdone in unintel¬ 
ligibility. 

He smiled. “That’s what a moonstone is,” 
he explained. “It belongs in part to a vari¬ 
ety of orthoclase called adularia, but in part 
also to albite or oligoclase.” 

“Thank you so much!” I said fervently. 
“I’ve long wanted to know.” 

Then we talked of the pearls. Herring- 
dean said nothing about wanting them, for 
Helen had given him to understand that the 
residuary legatee would take everything not 
nailed down by the will. 

“Marybelle was so pleased with them,” said 
his lordship reminiscently. “She was like a 
qhild when she was pleased. She was a dear 
nature, so warmly sympathetic and so respon¬ 
sive in her emotions. You loved her, Miss 
Field?” 

“I fell under Marybelle’s charm four years 


FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT 97 

ago,” replied Janet simply. “She was very 
good to me, and took me into her heart and 
home.” 

“You were her social secretary?” 

“So-called, but more of a companion and 
general helper. The first year I lived with 
her, we were like sisters. Then, when she 
married, she did not need me.” 

“But widowed, she was glad to have you 
with her again?” 

“Yes, Lord Herringdean; she ur^ed me to 
come to her, soon after Mr. Moss died.” 

I left the two talking and strolled away. I 
met Vida in the upper hall, dusting about, as 
housemaids will. I showed her the ring and 
asked her again if she could not remember 
ever having seen it. 

“Never,” she insisted. “Madame would 
not own such junket or w’at you call it. And 
I have never before seen it, no.” 

“Vida,” I said, suddenly, “you have not told 
me all you know of that—that night of Ma- 
dame’s death. Tell me the rest now.” 

It was a chance shot. I only said it be¬ 
cause the girl looked perturbed and—well, as 
if she had a secret and yearned to share it. 

“But, no, I know nothing!” 

“Yes, you do, out with it!” 

“Well, then, it is but this. I saw Miss Field 
sitting on the stairs.” 


98 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

“Miss Field! Sitting on the stairs?” 

As I have said, to repeat a statement blank¬ 
ly, is the surest way to get amplification 
thereof. 

“Yes, sir. She sat on the stairs, motionless, 
at four o’clock of the morning.” 

“Four o’clock! Miss Janet? You’re 
crazy!” 

“But no, I have not the craze. I come from 
my room, which is on the floor above, and as 
I am cold, I go to the hall cupboard for an¬ 
other blanket. It is permitted we do this if 
cold. Then, as I leave my door, I see Miss 
Field sit on the stair, five, six steps from the 
top. I slip back to my room and she does not 
see me. When I peep forth again, she is 
gone.” 

“Look here, Vida, I believe in your honesty, 
but I think you are mistaken. Come with me, 
and we will ask Miss Field. She is in the 
library now.” 

“Oh, I like not that!” 

“I didn’t ask you of your preferences; I 
said, come with me.” 

Unwillingly Vida went with me, and I took 
her straight to the library where Janet and 
Lord Herringdean were still sitting, talking. 

“Miss Field,” I began straightway, for this 
might be a piece of my material and I mustn’t 
miss a chance. “Vida says you were sitting 



FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT 99 

on the stairs the night, the morning, rather, of 
Marybelle’s death.” 

“Yes,” said Janet gravely, “I was.” 

Lord Herringdean gave a little exclamation 
of astonishment, and I went on, “At four 
o’clock,” Vida says. 

“Yes, about four,” agreed Janet. “I 
thought I heard someone moving about down¬ 
stairs and I went out to look down.” 

“A burglar, do you mean?” 

“That I couldn’t say. But, you must know, 
Mr. Prall, my hearing is very acute, perhaps 
abnormally so, and I can hear very faint 
sounds even at a distance. So, when I thought 
I heard an intruder, I stepped out to the hall 
and listened. As to sitting on the stairs—” 
she smiled a little—“that is atavism. I have 
Indian blood in my veins, North American 
Indian, I mean, and by putting my ear to the 
wall, or to the ground, I can hear marvelously. 
I sat down and put my ear against the wall, 
and I did hear somebody moving about down 
here in the library.” 

“It was I,” Lord Herringdean flung back 
his head and looked defiant. “I was kept 
awake by those confounded—I beg your par¬ 
don, by those annoying ghost stories the girls 
told. I am foolishly sensitive to such matters, 
and when I tried to sleep, I seemed to see that 
long, yellow hand, creeping—creeping—well, 


ioo THE MOSS MYSTERY 


I simply couldn’t stand it. I got the jumps 
and I came downstairs to see if I could get a 
peg of brandy from the sideboard. But there 
was nothing of the sort about, so I wandered 
in here and tried to read. I couldn’t bear to 
go to bed again and see those wretched spook 
visions.” 

“I thought it was you, Lord Herringdean,” 
said Janet, fixing her dark eyes on his face. 
“Had I known what you wanted, I would 
have called Spears to look after you. But I 
assumed you were wakeful and wanted to 
read; and having satisfied myself there was no 
burglar, I returned to my room. I saw you, 
Vida, when you peeped out at your door, but 
I didn’t speak, lest we waken some sleeper.” 

“Oh, Miss Field, I’m glad to know all. I 
wondered why you sat on the stair. Now I 
know.” 

“And you know why I was prowling about,” 
said Herringdean. “I’ve wondered whether 
I oughtn’t to mention it, but there seemed no 
need, so I didn’t.” 

“But,” said I eagerly, “if that was the very 
hour that some marauder did come in and 
turned on the gas that killed poor Marybelle, 
you ought to have caught a glimpse of him, 
Herringdean.” 

“I didn’t see anybody, nor did I hear any 
sound.” ! 


FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT ioi 

“Did you, Miss Field?” 

“No unexpected or unexplainable sound. I 
heard Lord Herringdean moving about, and 
I heard Vida, as she came into the hall and 
went back to her room.” 

“As you sat on the stairs you were right 
against the wall of Marybelle’s room—” I 
said, thinking aloud, rather than inquiring. 

“Yes,” and Janet’s big, dark eyes were full 
of grief. “I could hear her breathe, her 
asthma, you know, made her breathing audi¬ 
ble, and my hearing is so acute.” 

“You heard no other sound in her room?” 

“Absolutely none. Had there been, rest 
assured I should have heard it.” 

“And this was at four o’clock?” 

“About that,” said Janet. “I glanced at 
my watch on my return to my room and it 
was a few minutes after four. As I had sat¬ 
isfied myself that the sound I heard was Lord 
Herringdean, I had no further anxiety on the 
subject.” 

“To think,” exclaimed the Earl, “that you 
sat there, by the wall of that room, while 

Marybelle was being murdered!” 

“We can’t be sure of that,” I said. “The 
doctor couldn’t place the turning on of the 
gas definitely to the minute, it may have been 
done after Miss Field returned to her room.” 

“Or before I left it,” added Janet. 


102 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


“Yes,” I agreed. 

We were all silent for a moment, thinking 
of the strange situation: the Earl in the library- 
on the first floor, Vida in the hall on the third 
floor, Janet on the stairs between the second 
and third floors, and Marybelle in her bed¬ 
room on the second floor, perhaps at that very 
moment the Victim of foul play. 

The fact that three people were awake and 
stirring, made it difficult to see how an in¬ 
truder could have gone about his dastardly 
deed. But it was already impossible to see 
how the deed could have been done, and the 
story of Janet’s vigil on the stairs added but a 
trifle to the mystery. 

“Let us go to Marybelle’s room and think 
it over,” I proposed, and we did so. 

“Now,” said I, “let us three people be ab¬ 
solutely frank and honest and say what we 
really think.” 

“I shall be glad to!” Herringdean burst out. 
“I’ve tried to keep it back, but I’d like to put 
on record that I believe Marybelle’s death 
was in some mysterious fashion brought about 
by Mr. and Mrs. Wesley, or both.” 

Janet looked at him in horror. Her great 
black eyes seemed'to accuse him of wicked¬ 
ness almost equal to the crime itself. She was 
about to speak, but I interrupted. “Why, and 
how?” I asked. 


FOOTSTEPS IN THE NIGHT 103 

“Why? To get possession of the fortune 
coming to them at her death. They knew her 
marriage to me would doubtless deprive them 
of their expected inheritance. How? The 
means we have not yet discovered, but their 
room is next this, and some diabolical con¬ 
trivance was used that defies detection.” 

The Earl was very much in earnest. Evi¬ 
dently he had long wanted to express his sus¬ 
picions, but had controlled himself, until I 
invited frank speech. 

“You are wrong, Lord Herringdean,” said 
Janet, and her quiet tones were emphasized by 
a vibration of intense conviction. “It is im¬ 
possible. I know the Wesleys better than you 
do, and they are incapable of such a thought 
as crime in order to win a fortune. Please 
never hint such a thing again, unless you have 
some shadow of proof or some suggestion as 
‘to how they could have accomplished it.” 

“They had motive and opportunity,” I be¬ 
gan, but Janet cried out, “Opportunity! What 
do you mean?” 

“Only that they occupied the next room, 
and no one else was as near. As Lord Her¬ 
ringdean says, suppose some diabolical con¬ 
trivance, introduced, say, through the open 
bathroom window—their bathroom is next, 
you know—perhaps a long, jointed fishing 
rod, inserted-” 



104 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Janet looked incredulous. “A fishing rod 
that would come in at the window, turn round 
a corner and reach the gas to turn it on?” 

It did sound absurd; and as we looked at 
the distance and the devious directions it must 
take we were forced to discard the fishing- 
rod theory. 

“But something like that,” persisted the 
Earl. 

We talked a long time in this vein. We 
suggested and riddled some ingenious theo¬ 
ries, and at last my two visitors left me to 
brood alone. . 


CHAPTER IX 
trailed! 

A nd brood I did. Started on the fishpole 
track, I devised a pliable affair, of finely 
tempered steel, that could be insinuated and 
could finally reach the gas jet. Could force 
enough be exerted to turn the key at that 
distance? No? Well, then, a magnet on its 
end, that should pull the key around! Fine, 
as an example of a fecund imagination, but 
utterly impracticable, as a glance out of the 
window in question showed me. Then, I ad¬ 
vised myself, the same contrivance put 
through a hole in the wall. But though I ex¬ 
amined the wall between the two rooms, inch 
by inch, even atom by atom, there was no hole 
through it. The parrots blinked back at me 
and I could almost hear their words of jeering 
scorn that I could not find out what they had 
silently, witnessed. 

“Tell me,” I cried, “you grinning wretches! 
You saw the crime committed, tell me how, 
why, who? How? Why? Who?” 

I sounded like an owl. And as I realized 
it, I said angrily, “Don’t tell, then! The owl 


io6 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

is a wiser bird than a silly parrot, and I will 
find out for myself!” 

I sat down in my thinking chair. I took 
from my pocket the ring, the moonstone ring. 

“This ring holds the secret,” I mused. ‘Til 
wrest it from it. Is this ring a sign or a clue 
or not? If it is, it was placed on that burner 
by the hand that turned the key.” 

By aid of the step-ladder, which I kept in 
the room now, I looked at the burner from 
which the ring had been taken. It was light¬ 
ly crusted with rust and dust. It showed a 
slight scratch (yes, I did use a lens at this 
juncture. I had to) on one side, bright and 
new. Doubtless the ring had been slipped 
there lately, and was not a relic of Mary- 
belle’s mother’s time. 

Here was a start. A tip removed, a ring 
added, by way of preparation for the deed. 
This told me, at the moment, only the fact of 
definite and deliberate preparation. Was it 
Helen Wesley’s ring? But Helen was so 
matter-of-fact, not at all imaginative. That 
was more in Cissy’s vein. 

While up there, I studied the key that had 
been turned. It was, as a whole, diamond- 
shaped, with a round bulge on each corner. 
It was of filigreed brass, in openwork pattern. 
With my lens I studied the dust in the inter¬ 
stices. I looked sapiently for fingerprints, 


TRAILED! 


107 

when I realized that if I found one it would 
probably be my own; for when I sprang for 
the high key and turned it off that morning I 
naturally gave it a hard dab. 

Well, I found no definite print; never did 
think much of ’em anyway; but I imagined or 
thought or hoped that I discerned a cleaner 
hole in one of the corners of the diamond 
than in any other. The diamond was longer 
than wide, and in one of the side apexes the 
hole showed a brighter inside edge than the 
others. Could there be anything in the fish- 
pole game, after all? But no fishpole could 
taper small enough to go through that tiny 
hole and have any strength at all. And, too, 
there was no hole for it to come through from 
Wesley’s room; and the idea of its possessing 
the human intelligence to wiggle through the 
bathroom window and hit unerringly its goal 
in the corner of the gas burner’s key was a lit¬ 
tle too much to ask. 

Of course, I didn’t have in mind an ordi¬ 
nary fishpole. I thought vaguely of a willow 
wand, of a long wire, of a jointed steel rod. 
Oh, I had a magician’s whole paraphernalia 
in the back of my head! 

Yet, nothing could be done with my ideas 
unless I could find the hole through which the 
instrument of death had entered the room. 
I scafined the mopboard all round, the door 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


108 

frames, looked behind pictures, and at last 
began feeling for what I could not discern by 
sight. 

I pawed all the walls, punching a smug 
parrot now and then, to ease my impatience. 
Suddenly, on the wall next the hall, I felt a 
depression. It was high up—was going 
round the room on my step-ladder, feeling at 
the height of the biirner itself—and the wall 
paper gave a little beneath my fingertips. I 
felt a queer sensation, and before going fur¬ 
ther I stepped down and locked the door and 
returned. I carefully investigated, and found 
there had been made in the paper a cross- 
shaped incision, and the flaps were in place, so 
that the crossed cuts scarcely showed. Care¬ 
fully I turned back the four tiny triangular 
flaps, and saw a neat, round, cleancut hole, 
somewhat smaller in size than a lead pencil. 

I saw at once it had been made with Mary- 
belle’s auger, and thought, disappointedly, 
“One more place to hide her jewelry !” 

The hole was too small to hold any jewels, 
unless some small chain or narrow bar pin. 
And, too, any such thing would have fallen 
down between the walls. Could it be the hole 
was' for the entrance of my hypothetical fish¬ 
ing-rod? I looked through, but could see no 
light and concluded it did not go clear through 
the wall. But I must see. And carefully re- 


TRAILED! 


109 

1 

placing the minute flaps of the wall paper, I 
went out into the hall. 

Just then the luncheon gong sounded. 

I stopped the Earl as he went by and said 
imperatively: “I shall not be at luncheon un¬ 
til later. Keep everybody at the table, until 
I come. On no account let a single one leave, 
on any pretext. Detain them by force, if nec¬ 
essary.” 

He knew from my manner how in earnest I 
was, and nodding his head he went on down¬ 
stairs. Silently as possible, I visited every 
bedroom in the house, searching my final clue. 
I now knew How! I must learn Who and 
Why. 

After trying several rooms I learned Who . 

The Why, I couldn’t yet imagine, but the 
motive would soon appear. It is said there 
are but two motives for murder: money and 
revenge. Well, it was doubtless one or the 
other. 

I went aownstairs and went first to the cook, 
Mrs. Blum. She was, in a way, housekeeper 
also. 

“Mrs. Blum,” I asked, “who dusts the 
stairs?” 

“Which stairs, sir?” 

“Any of them. Say, the flight between the 
second and third floors.” 

“Well, sir, housemaids are kittle cattle. 


no 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 

Take the lower flight, now. Norah, the par¬ 
lor maid, dusts up to the landing, and Vida, 
the chambermaid, the steps above.” 

“And the flight above that? It has no half¬ 
way landing.” 

“Well, sir, Vida does the lower half, and 
Ellen, the second housemaid, the upper. 
There’s a dividing step, I don’t know which 
it is. But they know, ah, yes, well they know! 
And neither gyurl wud touch on the other side 
of it. Why, sir? Any complaint?” 

“No. Call Ellen here.” 

Ellen came, frightened out of her wits. 

“There is no fault to be found with your 
work, Ellen,” I said pleasantly, “but there’s 
a bit of money waiting for you if you think 
straight and clear and answer one or two ques¬ 
tions.” 

The girl stood quiet and looked composed 
and sensible. “Yes, sir,” she said. 

“Think back to the morning that we dis¬ 
covered the death of Mrs. Moss. Did you 
dust your stairs as usual that morning?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Was there any unusual oust or dirt on 
them?” 

“There was, sir, a little.” 

“Was it-” I whispered the rest, not 

wanting Mrs. Blum to hear it. 

“It was, sir.” 



TRAILED! 


hi 


I gave her the promised reward and went 
to the dining room. Those at table were just 
having coffee served. I took a small cup and 
declined Helen’s solicitous offers of food. 
When all were finished, I asked that all come 
with me to Marybelle’s room. 

“Be seated, please,” I said. “I have solved 
the mystery and I want to tell you about it.” 

They sat down, Frank and Helen on the 
edge of the bed, Janet in a little rocker, and 
the Earl in the straight desk chair. I closed 
the hall door, and stood by it, scarcely know¬ 
ing how to begin my sad revelation. 

“The method of bringing about the death 
of Marybelle I have discovered,” I said. 
“And the one who did it, I have spotted. But 
the motive I do not know. I will show you 
first how it was done.” 

I took from a table where I had laid it a 
long mattress needle, the kind used by uphol¬ 
sterers for tufting mattresses or furniture. 
Also I took a spool of heavy, dark linen 
thread, and breaking off a piece about six 
yards long, I threaded the needle with it. 
Then I opened the hall door and, stepping 
outside, brought back a strong, high chair. 
This I placed directly beneath the gas burner 
that had been found turned on. I thrust the 
long needle through the hole in the side of the 
key, the hole that I had thought seemed less 



iia THE MOSS MYSTERY 

dusty than the others, and pulled the short end 
of thread completely through. Then un¬ 
threading the needle, I pulled the thread till 
the lengths were even. Then twisting the 
two ends of thread tightly together, I threaded 
both at once through the needle’s eye. 

Refraining from glancing at the face of 
any one of my audience, I stepped down from 
the chair and moved it over till it was directly 
beneath the hole I had found in the wall of 
the room, next the hall. Getting on the chair 
again, I showed them the tiny flaps of paper, 
turning them back carefully for they were 
getting worn, and thrust the threaded needle 
through the hole, leaving it there. 

“I will ask that no one moves for a mo¬ 
ment,” I said, as I stepped down from the 
chair and went out into the hall. 

In a moment, those in the room saw the 
needle pulled on through and the threads 
drawn after it until taut. 

I sat on the stairs to do this. The needle 
had come through the wall and through the 
wooden mopboard that ran up the staircase 
next the wall. Then, slowly and firmly, I 
pulled both threads at once, and the watchers 
in Marybelle’s room saw the key of the burn¬ 
er turn slowly as the thread pulled it round. 
It had stood at right angles to the direction of 
the thread. Now it was turned till it was in 


TRAILED! 


it 3 

the same direction and the gas was turned on 

full. 

Then, letting go one end of the thread, I 
pulled on the other, and the whole length was 
drawn through the hole in the key, through 
the hole in the wall, and disappeared from 
view of those in the room. 

I returned and closed the door behind me, 

“That is how it was done,” I said simply. 
“An ingenious means, but neither complicated 
nor difficult. The hole was bored with Mary- 
belle’s own auger, perhaps some time before 
it was used. The thread was strung through, 
doubtless the night it was used, before Mary- 
belle came up to retire. With her near-sight¬ 
edness and her low, shaded electric lights she 
did not notice the thread, which was pulled by 
the murderer at, the doctor says, about four 
o’clock.” 

“Who did it?” said the Earl hoarsely, his 
face as white as death itself. 

“Suppose we ask for a confession,” I said, 
keeping my eyes on the floor lest the face of 
the criminal unnerve me. 

“I will confess,” said Janet, in low, even 
tones. “I am the murderer. May I tell you 
about it?” 

I looked up then, to see Janet Field’s face 
aglow with vivid emotion. She sat upright 
in her chair, every muscle tense, but with ab- 


THE MOSS MYSTERY 


* 14 

solute self-control. A red spot showed on 
either cheek and her black eyes blazed with 
almost a wild light. 

“I killed Marybelle,” she said, “in exactly 
the manner Mr. Prall has shown you. Now, 
I will tell you why. Nearly four years ago I 
came to live with Marybelle as companion 
and secretary. I told her I was engaged to 
Bradley Moss and wanted to stay with her 
something less than a year, when I would 
marry him. Marybelle agreed to this and 
said I might leave her when I chose. I was 
very poor, and I wanted to save up my salary 
for my trousseau. 

“Marybelle had never met Bradley until he 
came here to see me. From the moment she 
saw him, she planned to steal him away from 
me. For a time Bradley resisted her charms 
and was true to me, laughing with me, over 
the wiles and snares she laid for him. But 
no man could long hold out against such a 
woman. She flattered him, she teased him, 
she tempted him, she lured him with all the 
powers of her siren nature. She made her¬ 
self beautiful for him and wove an enchant¬ 
ment that succeeded at last. He came and 
told me. He was manly and frank. He was 
sorry beyond all words, but he could not break 
her thrall and he married her. 

“I went away, broken hearted, broken 


TRAILED! 115 

lived, but willing to forgive them both if she 
would give him happiness. You, Frank 
Wesley, know whether she did or not. You 
know how she tired of him in six months or 
less, how she made him her puppet, boasting 
that she could rule his very soul. Then he 
grew ill, and the doctor ordered him to Ari¬ 
zona. Marybelle refused to let him go, and 
kept him here, dancing attendance on her, 
though there was no longer any love on either 
side. She shed her charms on other men, she 
|was cold and cruel to Bradley. She was un¬ 
faithful to him. Yet she made him stay here, 
until—until he died—killed as surely by her 
hand as if she had stabbed him with a dag- 
ger! 

“After his death, she couldn’t live alone, 
and she asked me to come back to her. I 
came—for this sole and only purpose—re¬ 
venge ! 

' “I am of Indian descent. My forebears 
iwere of the Cherokees, and a vital, an innate 
trait of my character is revenge—justifiable 
■revenge. And I vowed that in her happiest 
hour I would kill Marybelle as she killed the’ 
’man I loved—and so killed me. For my life, 
went out when Bradley Moss died. Had 
Marybelle loved him, had she made his life 
happy, I should have rejoiced.” Janet rose,i 
and stood, a tragic, a dominant figure. Tall,| 


ii6 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

lithe, strong, she looked the epitome of her 
Indian tribe. And smouldering in her great, 
cloud-black eyes was the dull light of a 
soul’s accomplishment of a vow, a life for a 
life! 

“I made it my life-work,” she went on. “I 
planned for it, and I waited the day, which I 
knew would come, when Marybelle should be 
on the threshold of the greatest happiness she 
could desire. It came the night of her en¬ 
gagement to the Earl. I didn’t falter, I was 
in no whit stayed by a thought of pity for her. 
Indians are not like that. The time had come, 
that was all. I came up here while some 
were playing bridge, and I knew where all the 
others were. There was no chance of fail¬ 
ure, but I must do my work perfectly. Bring¬ 
ing in that very hall chair, I stood on it, while 
I removed the tip from the burner. Then—” 
Janet’s voice faltered a little, her scarlet lips 
trembled, but she went on—“then, I put on 
that burner the betrothal ring Bradley had 
given me. A poor little jewel, but the sym¬ 
bol of our deep, pure perfect love that Mary¬ 
belle stole away from us. Through that ring, 
that sign manual of our plighted troth, should 
flow the fumes that should mete out righteous 
judgment on the woman who had murdered 
my beloved. 

“In Bradley’s name and mine, I put that 


TRAILED! 


117 

ring on the burner, and through it came the 
death that avenged our wrong. Marybelle 
killed both our souls, wilfully, knowingly, 
purposely. Also, she killed Bradley’s body, 
wilfully, knowingly, purposely. She has 
paid that debt, a life for a life. The murder 
of our souls, of our happiness, of our hopes, 
can never be repaid. That is all. I have no 
regret, no sorrow. I have no care as to what 
becomes of me. An Indian never forgives or 
forgets. My life ended when Marybelle 
stole my love. There is nothing more.” 

Janet sat again in her chair, relaxed, but not 
limp. There was a silence. And then she 
said, in her usual tones, “What am I to do? 
Tell the authorities?” 

“No!” cried Frank Wesley. “This story 
shall never go beyond these four walls! I 
forbid it. Here the deed was done, here it 
has been explained. No one knows but the 
four walls, no one shall know. You agree 
with me, Herringdean?” 

“I do,” said the Earl firmly. 

I don’t know what became of Janet Field. 
I left Woodshurst the next day, as my work 
was accomplished and my connection with 
the Moss case at an end. I had achieved my 
desire. I had solved the mystery of a murder 
committed in an inaccessible room. 

I don’t suppose any further elucidations are 


ii8 THE MOSS MYSTERY 

needed to, make all clear to the reader, or to 
impress him, further with my marvelous per¬ 
spicacity and perspicuity in handling this af¬ 
fair. 

Janet had first conceived the idea of her 
plan by seeing the long, thin auger which 
Marybelle had bought for the purpose re¬ 
lated. One day, when Marybelle and all the 
servants chanced to be away for the afternoon, 
Janet had bored the hole, with extreme care 
and caution. It had begun in the wall at the 
height of the gas burner and had come out 
through the baseboard at the sixth step from 
the top of the stairs. She had carefully re¬ 
moved all plaster that fell and all sawdust on 
the stair side, and replacing the tiny paper 
flaps, had bided her time, without fear of dis¬ 
covery. The night that she drew the threads 
through, she had let fall a slight dust of plas¬ 
ter without knowing it, and this I suspected, 
after I began to see into the truth. She had 
pulled the threads at four o’clock that morn¬ 
ing, when Vida saw her sitting on the stairs. 
Her marvelous hearing had let her know just 
where the Earl was, and also had shown her 
that Marybelle was sleeping soundly in her 
bed. Janet’s own poise and controlled nature 
enabled her to answer Vida’s inquiries casu¬ 
ally, and to turn the suspicion of the situation 
toward the Earl. 


TRAILED! 119 

The plan was the concept of a master mind, 
but I may be pardoned if I add that the solu¬ 
tion of the mystery was the achievement of a 
mind rather more remarkable. 


THE END 





















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